MAY  13  1903 


mcm  si*' 


BT  101  . F57  1887 
Fiske,  John,  1842-1901. 

The  idea  of  God  as  affected 
by  modern  knowledge 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD  AS  AFFECTED 
BY  MODERN  KNOWLEDGE 


Y 

By  JOHN  FISKE 


Sixth  Thousand 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
fE&e  CimersiDe  <JTamfcriD0e 


Copyright,  1885, 

By  JOHN  FISKE. 

All  rights  reserved . 


The  Riverside  Press ,  Cambridge  .* 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


To 

MY  WIFE, 

IN  REMEMBRANCE  OF  THE  SWEET  SUNDAY  MORNING 
UNDER  THE  APPLE-TREE  ON  THE  HILLSIDE, 

WHEN  WE  TWO  SAT  LOOKING  DOWN  INTO  FAIRY  WOODLAND  PATHS, 
AND  TALKED  OF  THE  THINGS 
SINCE  WRITTEN  IN  THIS  LITTLE  BOOK, 

2  riofco  tietucate  it. 

’Apyvpiov  /cat  XPV<T^0V  °^X  vrrapxei 
(io u  o  Se  exw)  tovto  am  6c6a>ju.t. 

aXp 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/ideaofgodasaffecOOfisk_O 


PREFACE. 


- » - 

HEN  asked  to  give  a  second  ad¬ 
dress  before  the  Concord  School 
of  Philosophy,  I  gladly  accepted 
the  invitation,  as  affording  a  proper  occa¬ 
sion  for  saying  certain  things  which  I  had 
for  some  time  wished  to  say  about  theism. 
My  address  was  designed  to  introduce  the 
discussion  of  the  question  whether  pan¬ 
theism  is  the  legitimate  outcome  of  mod¬ 
ern  science.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the 
object  might  best  be  attained  by  passing 
in  review  the  various  modifications  which 
the  idea  of  God  has  undergone  in  the  past, 
and  pointing  out  the  shape  in  which  it  is 
likely  to  survive  the  rapid  growth  of  mod¬ 
ern  knowledge,  and  especially  the  estab¬ 
lishment  of  that  great  doctrine  of  evolu¬ 
tion  which  is  fast  obliging  us  to  revise 


vi  Preface . 

our  opinions  upon  all  subjects  whatsoever. 
Having  thus  in  the  text  outlined  the  idea 
of  God  most  likely  to  be  conceived  by 
minds  trained  in  the  doctrine  of  evolution, 
I  left  it  for  further  discussion  to  decide 
whether  the  term  “pantheism”  can  prop¬ 
erly  be  applied  to  such  a  conception. 
While  much  enlightenment  may  be  got 

from  carefully  describing  the  substance  of 

% 

a  philosophic  doctrine,  very  little  can  be 
gained  by  merely  affixing  to  it  a  label ; 
and  I  could  not  but  feel  that  my  argument 
would  be  simply  encumbered  by  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  any  question  of  nomenclature 
involving  such  a  vague  and  uninstructive 
epithet  as  “pantheism.”  Such  epithets 
are  often  regarded  with  favour  and  freely 
used,  as  seeming  to  obviate  the  necessity 
for  that  kind  of  labour  to  which  most  peo¬ 
ple  are  most  averse,  —  the  labour  of  sus¬ 
tained  and  accurate  thinking.  People  are 
too  apt  to  make  such  general  terms  do 
duty  in  place  of  a  careful  examination  of 
facts,  and  are  thus  sometimes  led  to 


Preface.  vii 

strange  conclusions.  When,  for  example, 
they  have  heard  somebody  called  an  “ag¬ 
nostic,”  they  at  once  think  they  know  all 
about  him  ;  whereas  they  have  very  likely 
learned  nothing  that  is  of  the  slightest 
value  in  characterizing  his  opinions  or  his 
mental  attitude.  A  term  that  can  be  ap¬ 
plied  at  once  to  a  Comte,  a  Mansel,  and  a 
Huxley  is  obviously  of  little  use  in  the 
matter  of  definition.  But,  it  may  be  asked, 
in  spite  of  their  world-wide  differences,  do 
not  these  three  thinkers  agree  in  holding 
that  nothing  can  be  known  about  the  na¬ 
ture  of  God  ?  Perhaps  so,  —  one  cannot 
answer  even  this  plain  question  with  an 
unqualified  yes ;  but,  granting  that  they 
fully  agree  in  this  assertion  of  ignorance, 
nevertheless,  in  their  philosophic  attitudes 
with  regard  to  this  ignorance,  in  the  use 
they  severally  make  of  the  assertion,  in  the 
way  it  determines  their  inferences  about  all 
manner  of  other  things,  the  differences  are 
so  vast  that  nothing  but  mental  confusion 
can  come  from  a  terminology  which  would 


viii  Preface. 

content  itself  by  applying  to  all  three  the 
common  epithet  “agnostic.”  The  case  is 
similar  with  such  a  word  as  “  pantheism,” 
which  has  been  familiarly  applied  to  so 
many  utterly  diverse  systems  of  thought 
that  it  is  very  hard  to  tell  just  what  it 
means.  It  has  been  equally  applied  to 
the  doctrine  of  “the  Hindu  philosophers 
of  the  orthodox  Brahmanical  schools,”  who 
“hold  that  all  finite  existence  is  an  illu¬ 
sion,  and  life  mere  vexation  and  mistake, 
a  blunder  or  sorry  jest  of  the  Absolute 
and  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Stoics,  who 
“went  to  the  other  extreme,  and  held  that 
the  universe  was  the  product  of  perfect 
reason  and  in  an  absolute  sense  good.” 
(Pollock’s  “Spinoza,”  p.  356.)  In  recent 
times  it  has  been  commonly  used  as  a 
vituperative  epithet,  and  hurled  indiscrimi¬ 
nately  at  such  unpopular  opinions  as  do 
not  seem  to  call  for  so  heavy  a  missile  as 
the  more  cruel  term  “atheism.”  The 
writer  who  sets  forth  in  plain  scientific 
language  a  physical  theory  of  the  universe 


Preface.  ix 

is  liable  to  be  scowled  at  and  called  an 
atheist ;  but,  when  the  very  same  ideas  are 
presented  in  the  form  of  oracular  apoph¬ 
thegm  or  poetic  rhapsody,  the  author  is 
more  gently  described  as  “  tinctured  with 
pantheism.” 

But  out  of  the  chaos  of  vagueness  in 
which  this  unhappy  word  has  been  im¬ 
mersed  it  is  perhaps  still  possible  to  ex¬ 
tract  something  like  a  definite  meaning. 
In  the  broadest  sense  there  are  three  pos¬ 
sible  ways  in  which  we  may  contemplate 
the  universe. 

First ,  we  may  regard  the  world  of  phe¬ 
nomena  as  sufficient  unto  itself,  and  deny 
that  it  needs  to  be  referred  to  any  under¬ 
lying  and  all-comprehensive  unity.  Noth¬ 
ing  has  an  ultimate  origin  or  destiny ; 
there  is  no  dramatic  tendency  in  the  suc¬ 
cession  of  events,  nor  any  ultimate  law  to 
which  everything  must  be  referred  ;  there 
is  no  reasonableness  in  the  universe  save 
that  with  which  human  fancy  unwarrant¬ 
ably  endows  it;  the  events  of  the  world 


x  Preface. 

have  no  orderly  progression  like  the  scenes 
of  a  well-constructed  plot,  but  in  the  man¬ 
ner  of  their  coming  and  going  they  con¬ 
stitute  simply  what  Chauncey  Wright  so 
aptly  called  “cosmical  weather  they  drift 
and  eddy  about  in  an  utterly  blind  and 
irrational  manner,  though  now  and  then 
evolving,  as  if  by  accident,  temporary  com¬ 
binations  which  have  to  us  a  rational  ap¬ 
pearance.  This  is  Atheism,  pure  and  un¬ 
qualified.  It  recognizes  no  Omnipresent 
Energy. 

Secondly ,  we  may  hold  that  the  world  of 
phenomena  is  utterly  unintelligible  unless 
referred  to  an  underlying  and  all-compre¬ 
hensive  unity.  All  things  are  manifesta¬ 
tions  of  an  Omnipresent  Energy  which 
cannot  be  in  any  imaginable  sense  per¬ 
sonal  or  anthropomorphic  ;  out  from  this 
eternal  source  of  phenomena  all  individ¬ 
ualities  proceed,  and  into  it  they  must  all 
ultimately  return  and  be  absorbed ;  the 
events  of  the  world  have  an  orderly  pro¬ 
gression,  but  not  toward  any  goal  recog- 


Preface.  xi 

nizable  by  us  ;  in  the  process  of  evolution 
there  is  nothing*  that  from  any  point  of 
view  can  be  called  teleological ;  the  be¬ 
ginning  and  end  of  things  —  that  which  is 
Alpha  and  Omega — is  merely  an  inscruta¬ 
ble  essence,  a  formless  void.  Such  a  view 
as  this  may  properly  be  called  Pantheism. 
It  recognizes  an  Omnipresent  Energy,  but 
virtually  identifies  it  with  the  totality  of 
things. 

Thirdly ,  we  may  hold  that  the  world  of 
phenomena  is  intelligible  only  when  re¬ 
garded  as  the  multiform  manifestation  of 
an  Omnipresent  Energy  that  is  in  some 
way  —  albeit  in  a  way  quite  above  our 
finite  comprehension  —  anthropomorphic 
or  quasi-personal.  There  is  a  true  objec¬ 
tive  reasonableness  in  the  universe ;  its 
events  have  an  orderly  progression,  and,  so 
far  as  those  events  are  brought  sufficiently 
within  our  ken  for  us  to  generalize  them 
exhaustively,  their  progression  is  toward  a 
goal  that  is  recognizable  by  human  intelli¬ 
gence  ;  “  the  process  of  evolution  is  itself 


xii  Preface. 

the  working  out  of  a  mighty  Teleology  of 
which  our  finite  understandings  can  fathom 
but  the  scantiest  rudiments  ”  (“  Cosmic 
Philosophy,”  vol.  ii.  p.  406)  ;  it  is  indeed 
but  imperfectly  that  we  can  describe  the 
dramatic  tendency  in  the  succession  of 
events,  but  we  can  see  enough  to  assure 
us  of  the  fundamental  fact  that  there  is 
such  a  tendency  ;  and  this  tendency  is  the 
objective  aspect  of  that  which,  when  re¬ 
garded  on  its  subjective  side,  we  call  Pur¬ 
pose.  Such  a  theory  of  things  is  Theism. 
It  recognizes  an  Omnipresent  Energy, 
which  is  none  other  than  the  living  God. 

It  is  this  theistic  doctrine  which  I  hold 
myself,  and  which  in  the  present  essay  I 
have  sought  to  exhibit  as  the  legitimate 
outcome  of  modern  scientific  thought.  I 
was  glad  to  have  such  an  excellent  occa¬ 
sion  for  returning  to  the  subject  as  the 
invitation  from  Concord  gave  me,  because 
in  a  former  attempt  to  expound  the  same 
doctrine  I  do  not  seem  to  have  succeeded 
in  making  myself  understood.  In  my 


xnt 


Preface. 

“  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,”  pub¬ 
lished  in  1874,  I  endeavoured  to  set  forth 
a  theory  of  theism  identical  with  that 
which  is  set  forth  in  the  present  essay. 
But  an  acute  and  learned  friend,  writing 
under  the  pseudonym  of  “  Physicus,”  in 
his  “  Candid  Examination  of  Theism  ” 
(London,  1878),  thus  criticizes  my  theory: 
In  it,  he  says,  “while  I  am  able  to  discern 
the  elements  which  I  think  may  properly 
be  regarded  as  common  to  Theism  and  to 
Atheism,  I  am  not  able  to  discern  any 
single  element,  that  is  specifically  distinc¬ 
tive  of  Theism  ”  (p.  145).  The  reason  for 
the  inability  of  “Physicus”  to  discern  any 
such  specifically  distinctive  element  is  that 
he  misunderstands  me  as  proposing  to  di¬ 
vest  the  theistic  idea  of  every  shred  of 
anthropomorphism,  while  still  calling  it  a 
theistic  idea.  This,  he  thinks,  would  be 
an  utterly  illegitimate  proceeding,  and  I 
quite  agree  with  him.  In  similar  wise  my 
friend  Mr.  Frederick  Pollock,  in  his  ad¬ 
mirable  work  on  Spinoza  (London,  1880), 


xiv  Preface . 

observes  that  “  Mr.  Fiske’s  doctrine  ex¬ 
cludes  the  belief  in  a  so-called  Personal 
God,  and  the  particular  forms  of  religious 
emotion  dependent  on  it”  (p.  356).  If 
the  first  part  of  this  sentence  stood  alone, 
I  might  pause  to  inquire  how  much  lati¬ 
tude  of  meaning  may  be  conveyed  in  the 
expression  “  so-called  ;  ”  is  it  meant  that  I 
exclude  the  belief  in  a  Personal  God  as  it 
was  held  by  Augustine  and  Paley,  or  as  it 
was  held  by  Clement  and  Schleiermacher, 
or  both  ?  But  the  second  clause  of  the 
sentence  seems  to  furnish  the  answer ;  it 
seems  to  imply  that  I  would  practically  do 
away  with  Theism  altogether. 

Such  a  serious  misstatement  of  my  posi¬ 
tion,  made  in  perfect  good  faith  by  two 
thinkers  so  conspicuous  for  ability  and  can¬ 
dour,  shows  that,  in  spite  of  all  the  elab¬ 
orate  care  with  which  the  case  was  stated 
in  “Cosmic  Philosophy,”  some  further  ex¬ 
planation  is  needed.  It  is  true  that  there 
are  expressions  in  that  work  which,  taken 
singly  and  by  themselves,  might  seem  to 


Preface.  xv 

imply  a  total  rejection  of  theism.  Such 
expressions  occur  chiefly  in  the  chapter  en¬ 
titled  “Anthropomorphic  Theism,”  where 
great  pains  are  taken  to  show  the  inade¬ 
quacy  of  the  Paley  argument  from  design, 
and  to  point  out  the  insuperable  difficul¬ 
ties  in  which  we  are  entangled  by  the  con¬ 
ception  of  a  Personal  God  as  it  is  held  by 
the  great  majority  of  modern  theologians 
who  have  derived  it  from  Plato  and  Au¬ 
gustine.  In  the  succeeding  chapters,  how¬ 
ever,  it  is  expressly  argued  that  the  total 
elimination  of  anthropomorphism  from  the 
idea  of  God  is  impossible.  There  are  some 
who,  recognizing  that  the  ideas  of  Person¬ 
ality  and  Infinity  are  unthinkable  in  com¬ 
bination,  seek  to  escape  the  difficulty  by 
speaking  of  God  as  the  “  Infinite  Power  ;  ” 
that  is,  instead  of  a  symbol  derived  from 
our  notion  of  human  consciousness,  they 
employ  a  symbol  derived  from  our  notion 
of  force  in  general.  For  many  philosophic 
purposes  the  device  is  eminently  useful ; 
but  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that,  while 


xvi  Preface. 

the  form  of  our  experience  of  Personality 
does  not  allow  us  to  conceive  it  as  infinite, 
it  is  equally  true  that  the  form  of  our  ex¬ 
perience  of  Force  does  not  allow  us  to 
conceive  it  as  infinite,  since  we  know  force 
only  as  antagonized  by  other  force.  Since, 
moreover,  our  notion  of  force  is  purely  a 
generalization  from  our  subjective  sensa¬ 
tions  of  effort  overcoming  resistance,  there 
is  scarcely  less  anthropomorphism  lurking 
in  the  phrase  “Infinite  Power”  than  in  the 
phrase  “Infinite  Person.”  Now  in  “Cos¬ 
mic  Philosophy  ”  I  argue  that  the  presence 
of  God  is  the  one  all-pervading  fact  of  life, 
from  which  there  is  no  escape ;  that  while 
in  the  deepest  sense  the  nature  of  Deity 
is  unknowable  by  finite  Man,  nevertheless 
the  exigencies  of  our  thinking  oblige  us  to 
symbolize  that  nature  in  some  form  that 
has  a  real  meaning  for  us  ;  and  that  we 
cannot  symbolize  that  nature  as  in  any 
wise  physical,  but  are  bound  to  symbolize 
it  as  in  some  way  psychical.  >  I  do  not  here 
repeat  the  arguments,  but  simply  state  the 


Preface .  xvii 

conclusions.  The  final  conclusion  (vol.  ii. 
p.  449)  is  that  we  must  not  say  that  “  God 
is  Force,”  since  such  a  phrase  inevitably 
calls  up  those  pantheistic  notions  of  blind 
necessity,  which  it  is  my  express  desire  to 
avoid ;  but,  always  bearing  in  mind  the 
symbolic  character  of  the  words,  we  may 
say  that  “God  is  Spirit.”  How  my  belief 
in  the  personality  of  God  could  be  more 
strongly  expressed  without  entirely  desert¬ 
ing  the  language  of  modern  philosophy 
and  taking  refuge  in  pure  mythology,  I 
am  unable  to  see. 

There  are  two  points  in  the  present 
essay  which  I  hope  will  serve  to  define 
more  completely  the  kind  of  theism  which 
I  have  tried  to  present  as  compatible  with 
the  doctrine  of  evolution.  One  is  the 
historic  contrast  between  anthropomorphic 
and  cosmic  theism  regarded  in  their  modes 
of  genesis,  and  especially  as  exemplified 
within  the  Christian  church  in  the  very 
different  methods  and  results  of  Augustine 
on  the  one  hand  and  Athanasius  on  the 


xviii  Preface . 

other.  The  view  which  I  have  ventured 
to  designate  as  “cosmic  theism”  is  no  in¬ 
vention  of  mine  ;  in  its  most  essential  fea¬ 
tures  it  has  been  entertained  by  some  of 
the  profoundest  thinkers  of  Christendom 
in  ancient  and  modern  times,  from  Clem¬ 
ent  of  Alexandria  to  Lessing  and  Goethe 
and  Schleiermacher.  The  other  point  is 
the  teleological  inference  drawn  from  the 
argument  of  my  first  Concord  address  on 
“  The  Destiny  of  Man,  viewed  in  the  Light 
of  his  Origin.” 

When  that  address  was  published,  a 
year  ago,  I  was  surprised  to  find  it  quite 
commonly  regarded  as  indicating  some 
radical  change  of  attitude  on  my  part,  — 
a  “  conversion,”  perhaps,  from  one  set  of 
opinions  to  another.  Inasmuch  as  the 
argument  in  the  “  Destiny  of  Man  ”  was 
based  in  every  one  of  its  parts  upon  argu¬ 
ments  already  published  in  “  Cosmic  Phi¬ 
losophy”  (1874),  and  in  the  “Unseen 
World”  (1876),  I  naturally  could  not 
understand  why  the  later  book  should 


Preface.  xix 

impress  people  so  differently  from  the 
earlier  ones.  It  presently  appeared,  how¬ 
ever,  that  none  of  my  friends  who  had 
studied  the  earlier  books  had  detected  any 
such  change  of  attitude  ;  it  was  only  people 
who  knew  little  or  nothing  about  me,  or 
else  the  newspapers.  Whence  the  infer¬ 
ence  seemed  obvious  that  many  readers 
of  the  “ Destiny  of  Man”  must  have  con¬ 
trasted  it,  not  with  my  earlier  books  which 
they  had  not  read,  but  with  some  vague 
and  distorted  notion  about  my  views  which 
had  grown  up  (Heaven  knows  how  or  why  !) 
through  the  medium  of  “the  press;”  and 
thus  there  might  have  been  produced  the 
impression  that  those  views  had  under¬ 
gone  a  radical  change. 

It  would  be  little  to  my  credit,  however, 
had  my  views  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
and  its  implications  undergone  no  develop¬ 
ment  or  enlargement  since  the  publication 
of  “  Cosmic  Philosophy.”  To  carry  such  a 
subject  about  in  one’s  mind  for  ten  years, 
without  having  any  new  thoughts  about  it, 


xx  Preface. 

would  hardly  be  a  proof  of  fitness  for  phi¬ 
losophizing.  I  have  for  some  time  been 
aware  of  a  shortcoming  in  the  earlier  work, 
which  it  is  the  purpose  of  these  two  Con¬ 
cord  addresses  in  some  measure  to  remedy. 
That  shortcoming  was  an  imperfect  ap¬ 
preciation  of  the  goal  toward  which  the 
process  of  evolution  is  tending,  and  a  con¬ 
sequent  failure  to  state  adequately  how  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  must  affect  our  esti¬ 
mate  of  Man’s  place  in  Nature.  Nothing 
of  fundamental  importance  in  “  Cosmic 
Philosophy”  needed  changing,  but  a  new 
chapter  needed  to  be  written,  in  order  to 
show  how  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  by 
exhibiting  the  development  of  the  highest 
spiritual  human  qualities  as  the  goal  to¬ 
ward  which  God’s  creative  work  has  from 
the  outset  been  tending,  replaces  Man  in 
his  old  position  of  headship  in  the  uni¬ 
verse,  even  as  in  the  days  of  Dante  and 
Aquinas.  That  which  the  pre-Copernican 
astronomy  naively  thought  to  do  by  plac¬ 
ing  the  home  of  Man  in  the  centre  of 


Preface .  xxi 

the  physical  universe,  the  Darwinian  bi¬ 
ology  profoundly  accomplishes  by  exhibit¬ 
ing  Man  as  the  terminal  fact  in  that  stu¬ 
pendous  process  of  evolution  whereby 
things  have  come  to  be  what  they  are. 
In  the  deepest  sense  it  is  as  true  as  it  ever 
was  held  to  be,  that  the  world  was  made 
for  Man,  and  that  the  bringing  forth  in 
him  of  those  qualities  which  we  call  high¬ 
est  and  holiest  is  the  final  cause  of  crea¬ 
tion.  The  arguments  upon  which  this 
conclusion  rests,  as  they  are  set  forth  in 
the  “Destiny  of  Man”  and  epitomized  in 
the  concluding  section  of  the  present  es¬ 
say,  may  all  be  found  in  “  Cosmic  Philoso¬ 
phy  ;  ”  but  I  failed  to  sum  them  up  there 
and  indicate  the  conclusion,  almost  within 
reach,  which  I  had  not  quite  clearly  seized. 
When,  after  long  hovering  in  the  back¬ 
ground  of  consciousness,  it  suddenly  flashed 
upon  me  two  years  ago,  it  came  with  such 
vividness  as  to  seem  like  a  revelation. 

This  conclusion  as  to  the  implications 
of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  concerning 


xxii  Preface . 

Man’s  place  in  Nature  supplies  the  ele¬ 
ment  warning  in  the  theistic  theory  set 
forth  in  “  Cosmic  Philosophy,”  —  the  tele¬ 
ological  element.  It  is  profoundly  true 
that  a  theory  of  things  may  seem  theistic 
or  atheistic  in  virtue  of  what  it  says  of 
Man,  no  less  than  in  virtue  of  what  it  says 
of  God.  The  craving  for  a  final  cause  is 
so  deeply  rooted  in  human  nature  that  no 
doctrine  of  theism  which  fails  to  satisfy  it 
can  seem  other  than  lame  and  ineffective. 
In  writing  “Cosmic  Philosophy”  I  fully 
realized  this  when,  in  the  midst  of  the 
argument  against  Paley’s  form  of  theism, 
I  said  that  “the  process  of  evolution  is 
itself  the  working  out  of  a  mighty  Tele¬ 
ology  of  which  our  finite  understandings 
can  fathom  but  the  scantiest  rudiments.” 
Nevertheless,  while  the  whole  momentum 
of  my  thought  carried  me  to  the  conviction 
that  it  must  be  so,  I  was  not  yet  able  to 
indicate  how  it  is  so,  and  I  accordingly  left 
the  subject  with  this  brief  and  inadequate 
hint.  Could  the  point  have  been  worked 


Preface .  xxiii 

out  then  and  there,  I  think  it  would  have 
left  no  doubt  in  the  minds  of  “  Physicus” 
and  Mr.  Pollock  as  to  the  true  character 
of  Cosmic  Theism. 

But  hold,  cries  the  scientific  inquirer, 
what  in  the  world  are  you  doing?  Are 
we  again  to  resuscitate  the  phantom  Te¬ 
leology,  which  we  had  supposed  at  last 
safely  buried  between  cross-roads  and 
pinned  down  with  a  stake  ?  Was  not  Ba¬ 
con  right  in  characterizing  “final  causes  ” 
as  vestal  virgins,  so  barren  has  their  study 
proved  ?  And  has  not  Huxley,  with  yet 
keener  sarcasm,  designated  them  the  he- 
tairce  of  philosophy,  so  often  have  they 
led  men  astray  ?  Very  true.  I  do  not 
wish  to  take  back  a  single  word  of  all  that 
I  have  said  in  my  chapter  on  “Anthro¬ 
pomorphic  Theism  ”  in  condemnation  of 
the  teleological  method  and  the  peculiar 
theistic  doctrines  upon  which  it  rests.  As 
a  means  of  investigation  it  is  absolutely 
worthless.  Nay,  it  is  worse  than  worth¬ 
less  ;  it  is  treacherous,  it  is  debauching  to 


xxiv  Preface . 

the  intellect.  But  that  is  no  reason  why, 
when  a  distinct  dramatic  tendency  in  the 
events  of  the  universe  appears  as  the 
result  of  purely  scientific  investigation, 
we  should  refuse  to  recognize  it.  It  is  the 
object  of  the  “Destiny  of  Man  ”  to  prove 
that  there  is  such  a  dramatic  tendency  ; 
and  while  such  a  tendency  cannot  be  re¬ 
garded  as  indicative  of  purpose  in  the 
limited  anthropomorphic  sense,  it  is  still, 
as  I  said  before,  the  objective  aspect  of 
that  which,  when  regarded  on  its  subjec¬ 
tive  side,  we  call  Purpose.  There  is  a 
reasonableness  in  the  universe  such  as  to 
indicate  that  the  Infinite  Power  of  which 
it  is  the  multiform  manifestation  is  psy¬ 
chical,  though  it  is  impossible  to  ascribe 
to  Him  any  of  the  limited  psychical  at¬ 
tributes  which  we  know,  or  to  argue  from 
the  ways  of  Man  to  the  ways  of  God. 
For,  as  St.  Paul  reminds  us,  “  who  hath 
known  the  mind  of  the  Lord,  or  who  hath 
been  his  counsellor  ?  ” 

It  is  in  this  sense  that  I  accept  Mr. 


Preface .  xxv 

Spencer’s  doctrine  of  the  Unknowable. 
How  far  my  interpretation  agrees  with  his 
own  I  do  not  undertake  to  say.  On  such 
an  abstruse  matter  it  is  best  that  one 
should  simply  speak  for  one’s  self.  But  in 
his  recent  essay  on  “  Retrogressive  Re¬ 
ligion  ”  he  uses  expressions  which  imply 
a  doctrine  of  theism  essentially  similar  to 
that  here  maintained.  The  “  infinite  and 
eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  pro¬ 
ceed/’  and  which  is  the  same  power  that 
“in  ourselves  wells  up  under  the  form  of 
consciousness,”  is  certainly  the  power 
which  is  here  recognized  as  God.  The 
term  “Unknowable”  I  have  carefully  re¬ 
frained  from  using ;  it  does  not  occur  in 
the  text  of  this  essay.  It  describes  only 
one  aspect  of  Deity,  but  it  has  been  seized 
upon  by  shallow  writers  of  every  school, 
treated  as  if  fully  synonymous  with  Deity, 
and  made  the  theme  of  the  most  dismal 
twaddle  that  the  world  has  been  deluged 
with  since  the  days  of  mediaeval  scholasti¬ 
cism.  The  latest  instance  is  the  wretched 


XXVI 


Preface . 

positivist  rubbish  which  Mr.  Frederic  Har¬ 
rison  has  mistaken  for  criticism,  and  to 
which  it  is  almost  a  pity  that  Mr.  Spencer 
should  have  felt  called  upon  to  waste  his 
valuable  time  in  replying.  That  which 
Mr.  Spencer  throughout  all  his  works  re¬ 
gards  as  the  All-Being,  the  Power  of  which 
“  our  lives,  alike  physical  and  mental,  in 
common  with  all  the  activities,  organic 
and  inorganic,  amid  which  we  live,  are  but 
the  workings,”  —  this  omnipresent  Power 
it  pleases  Mr.  Harrison  to  call  the  “  All- 
Nothingness,”  to  describe  it  as  “a  logical 
formula  begotten  in  controversy,  dwelling 
apart  from  man  and  the  world  ”  (whatever 
all  that  may  mean),  and  to  imagine  its  wor¬ 
shippers  as  thus  addressing  it  in  prayer, 
“  O  xn,  love  us,  help  us,  make  us  one  with 
thee !  ”  If  Mr.  Harrison’s  aim  were  to 
understand,  rather  than  to  misrepresent, 
the  religious  attitude  which  goes  with  such 
a  conception  of  Deity  as  Mr.  Spencer’s, 
he  could  nowhere  find  it  more  happily  ex¬ 
pressed  than  in  these  wonderful  lines  of 
Goethe :  — 


Preface.  xxvii 

"  Weltseele,  komm,  uns  zu  durchdringen  I 
Dann  mit  dem  Weltgeist  selbst  zu  ringen 
Wird  unsrer  Krafte  Hochberuf. 
Theilnehmend  fiihren  gute  Geister, 

Gelinde  leitend,  hochste  Meister, 

Zu  dem  der  alles  schafft  und  schuf.” 

Mr.  Harrison  is  enabled  to  perform  his 
antics  simply  because  he  happens  to  have 
such  a  word  as  “Unknowable”  to  play 
with.  Yet  the  word  which  has  been  put 
to  such  unseemly  uses  is,  when  properly 
understood,  of  the  highest  value  in  theis- 
tic  philosophy.  That  Deity  per  se  is  not 
only  unknown  but  unknowable  is  a  truth 
which  Mr.  Spencer  has  illustrated  with  all 
the  resources  of  that  psychologic  analysis 
of  which  he  is  incomparably  the  greatest 
master  the  world  has  ever  seen  ;  but  it 
is  not  a  truth  which  originated  with  him, 
or  the  demonstration  of  which  is  tanta¬ 
mount,  as  Mr.  Harrison  would  have  us 
believe,  to  the  destruction  of  all  religion. 
Among  all  the  Christian  theologians  that 
have  lived,  there  are  few  higher  names 
than  Athanasius,  who  also  regarded  Deity 


xxviii  Preface . 

per  se  as  unknowable,  being  revealed  to 
mankind  only  through  incarnation  in 
Christ.  It  is  not  as  failing  to  recognize 
its  value  that  I  have  refrained  in  this  essay 
from  using  the  term  “  Unknowable;  ”  it  is 
because  so  many  false  and  stupid  infer¬ 
ences  have  been  drawn  from  Mr.  Spencer’s 
use  of  the  word  that  it  seemed  worth  while 
to  show  how  a  doctrine  essentially  similar 
to  his  might  be  expounded  without  intro¬ 
ducing  it.  For  further  elucidation  I  will 
simply  repeat  in  this  connection  what  I 
wrote  long  ago :  “  It  is  enough  to  re¬ 
mind  the  reader  that  Deity  is  unknowable 
just  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  manifested  to 
consciousness  through  the  phenomenal 
world, — knowable  just  in  so  far  as  it  is 
thus  manifested  :  unknowable  in  so  far  as 
infinite  and  absolute,  —  knowable  in  the 
order  of  its  phenomenal  manifestations; 
knowable,  in  a  symbolic  way,  as  the  Power 
which  is  disclosed  in  every  throb  of  the 
mighty  rhythmic  life  of  the  universe ; 
knowable  as  the  eternal  Source  of  a  Moral 


Preface.  xxix 

Law  which  is  implicated  with  each  action 
of  our  lives,  and  in  obedience  to  which  lies 
our  only  guaranty  of  the  happiness  which 
is  incorruptible,  and  which  neither  inevi¬ 
table  misfortune  nor  unmerited  obloquy 
can  take  away.  Thus,  though  we  may  not 
by  searching  find  out  God,  though  we  may 
not  compass  infinitude  or  attain  to  abso¬ 
lute  knowledge,  we  may  at  least  know  all 
that  it  concerns  us  to  know,  as  intelligent 
and  responsible  beings.  They  who  seek 
to  know  more  than  this,  to  transcend  the 
conditions  under  which  alone  is  knowl¬ 
edge  possible,  are,  in  Goethe’s  profound 
language,  as  wise  as  little  children  who, 
when  they  have  looked  into  a  mirror,  turn 
it  around  to  see  what  is  behind  it.  (“  Cos¬ 
mic  Philosophy,”  vol.  ii.  p.  470.) 

The  present  essay  must  be  regarded  as 
a  sequel  to  the  “Destiny  of  Man,” — so 
much  so  that  the  force  of  the  argument 
in  the  concluding  section  can  hardly  be 
appreciated  without  reference  to  the  other 


xxx  Preface. 

book.  The  two  books,  taken  together, 
contain  the  bare  outlines  of  a  theory  of 
religion  which  I  earnestly  hope  at  some 
future  time  to  state  elaborately  in  a  work 
on  the  true  nature  of  Christianity.  Some 
such  scheme  had  begun  vaguely  to  dawn 
upon  my  mind  when  I  was  fourteen  years 
old,  and  thought  in  the  language  of  the 
rigid  Calvinistic  orthodoxy  then  prevalent 
in  New  England.  After  many  and  exten¬ 
sive  changes  of  opinion,  the  idea  assumed 
definite  shape  in  the  autumn  of  1869,  when 
I  conceived  the  plan  of  a  book  to  be  entitled 
“Jesus  of  Nazareth  and  the  Founding  of 
Christianity,”  —  a  work  intended  to  deal 
on  the  one  hand  with  the  natural  genesis 
of  the  complex  aggregate  of  beliefs  and  as¬ 
pirations  known  as  Christianity,  and  on  the 
other  hand  with  the  metamorphoses  which 
are  being  wrought  in  this  aggregate  by 
modern  knowledge  and  modern  theories 
of  the  universe.  Such  a  book,  involv¬ 
ing  a  treatment  both  historical  and  phil¬ 
osophical,  requires  long  and  varied  prep* 


Preface .  xxxi 

aration  ;  and  I  have  always  regarded  my 
other  books,  published  from  time  to  time, 
as  simply  wayside  studies  preliminary  to 
the  undertaking  of  this  complicated  and 
difficult  task.  While  thus  habitually  shap¬ 
ing  my  work  with  reference  to  this  cher¬ 
ished  idea,  I  have  written  some  things 
which  are  in  a  special  sense  related  to  it. 
The  rude  outlines  of  a  very  small  portion 
of  the  historical  treatment  are  contained 
in  the  essays  on  “The  Jesus  of  History,” 
and  “The  Christ  of  Dogma,”  published  in 
the  volume  entitled  “  The  Unseen  World, 
and  Other  Essays.”  The  outlines  of  the 
philosophical  treatment  are  partially  set 
forth  in  the  “  Destiny  of  Man  ”  and  in  the 
present  work. 

It  amused  me  to  see  that  almost  every  re¬ 
view  of  the  “  Destiny  of  Man  ”  took  pains 
to  state  that  it  was  my  Concord  address 
“rewritten  and  expanded.”  Such  trifles 
help  one  to  understand  the  helter-skelter 
way  in  which  more  important  things  get 
said  and  believed.  The  “  Destiny  of 


xxxii  Preface . 

Man  ”  was  printed  exactly  as  it  was  de¬ 
livered  at  Concord,  without  the  addition, 
or  subtraction,  or  alteration  of  a  single 
word.  The  case  is  the  same  with  the 
present  work. 

Petersham,  September  6, 1885. 


CONTENTS. 

- G - - 

/.  Difficulty  of  expressing  the  Idea  of  God  so 

that  it  can  he  readily  understood  ...  35 

II.  The  ‘Rapid  Growth  of  Modern  Knowledge  .  46 

III.  Sources  of  the  Theistic  Idea . 62 

IK.  Development  of  Monotheism . 72 

K.  The  Idea  of  God  as  immanent  in  the  World .  81  • 

KI.  The  Idea  of  God  as  remote  from  the  World.  87 

KII.  Conflict  between  the  Two  Ideas ,  commonly 
misunderstood  as  a  Conflict  between  Re¬ 
ligion  and  Science . P7 

Kill.  Anthropomorphic  Conceptions  of  God  .  .  /// 

IX.  The  Argument  from  Design . 1 18 

X.  Simile  of  the  Watch  replaced  by  Simile  of 

the  Flower . 128 

XI.  The  Craving  for  a  Final  Cause  .  .  .  .174 

XII.  Symbolic  Conceptions . 140 

XIII.  The  Eternal  Source  of  Phenomena  .  .  .  144 

XIK.  The  Power  that  mahes  for  Righteousness  .  / 58 


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THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


I. 

c Difficulty  of  expressing  the  Idea  of  God  so 
that  it  can  he  readily  understood. 

N  Goethe’s  great  poem,  while  Faust 
is  walking  with  Margaret  at  even¬ 
tide  in  the  garden,  she  asks  him 
questions  about  his  religion.  It  is  long 
since  he  has  been  shriven  or  attended 
mass;  does  he,  then,  believe  in  God?  —  a 
question  easy  to  answer  with  a  simple  yes, 
were  it  not  for  the  form  in  which  it  is  put. 
The  great  scholar  and  subtle  thinker,  who 
has  delved  in  the  deepest  mines  of  philoso¬ 
phy  and  come  forth  weary  and  heavy-laden 
with  their  boasted  treasures,  has  framed 
a  very  different  conception  of  God  from 
that  entertained  by  the  priest  at  the  con- 


36  The  Idea  of  God . 

fessional  or  the  altar,  and  how  is  he  to 
make  this  intelligible  to  the  simple-minded 
girl  that  walks  by  his  side?  Who  will 
make  bold  to  declare  that  he  can  grasp  an 
idea  of  such  overwhelming  vastness  as  the 
idea  of  God,  yet  who  that  hath  the  feel¬ 
ings  of  a  man  can  bring  himself  to  cast 
away  a  belief  that  is  indispensable  to  the 
rational  and  healthful  workings  of  the 
mind  ?  So  long  as  the  tranquil  dome  of 
heaven  is  raised  above  our  heads  and  the 
firm-set  earth  is  spread  forth  beneath  our 
feet,  while  the  everlasting  stars  course  in 
their  mighty  orbits  and  the  lover  gazes 
with  ineffable  tenderness  into  the  eyes  of 
her  that  loves  him,  so  long,  says  Faust, 
must  our  hearts  go  out  toward  Him  that 
upholds  and  comprises  all.  Name  or  de¬ 
scribe  as  we  may  the  Sustainer  of  the 
world,  the  eternal  fact  remains  there,  far 
above  our  comprehension,  yet  clearest  and 
most  real  of  all  facts.  To  name  and  de¬ 
scribe  it,  to  bring  it  within  the  formulas 
of  theory  or  creed,  is  but  to  veil  its  glory 


The  Idea  of  God .  37 

as  when  the  brightness  of  heaven  is  en¬ 
shrouded  in  mist  and  smoke.  This  has 
a  pleasant  sound  to  Margaret’s  ears.  It 
reminds  her  of  what  the  parson  some¬ 
times  says,  though  couched  in  very  differ¬ 
ent  phrases;  and  yet  she  remains  uneasy 
and  unsatisfied.  Her  mind  is  benumbed 
by  the  presence  of  an  idea  confessedly  too 
great  to  be  grasped.  She  feels  the  need 
of  some  concrete  symbol  that  can  be  read¬ 
ily  apprehended  ;  and  she  hopes  that  her 
lover  has  not  been  learning  bad  lessons 
from  Mephistopheles. 

The  difficulty  which  here  besets  Marga¬ 
ret  must  doubtless  have  been  felt  by  every 
one  when  confronted  with  the  thoughts  by 
which  the  highest  human  minds  have  en¬ 
deavoured  to  disclose  the  hidden  life  of 
the  universe  and  interpret  its  meaning.  It 
is  a  difficulty  which  baffles  many,  and  they 
who  surmount  it  are  few  indeed.  Most 
people  content  themselves  through  life 
with  a  set  of  concrete  formulas  concerning 
Deity,  and  vituperate  as  atheistic  all  con- 


$8  The  Idea  of  God . 

ceptions  which  refuse  to  be  compressed 
within  the  narrow  limits  of  their  creed. 
For  the  great  mass  of  men  the  idea  of 
God  is  quite  overlaid  and  obscured  by  in¬ 
numerable  symbolic  rites  and  doctrines 
that  have  grown  up  in  the  course  of  the 
long  historic  development  of  religion.  All 
such  rites  and  doctrines  had  a  meaning 
once,  beautiful  and  inspiring  or  terrible 
and  forbidding,  and  many  of  them  still 
retain  it.  But  whether  meaningless  or 
fraught  with  significance,  men  have  wildly 
clung  to  them  as  shipwrecked  mariners 
cling  to  the  drifting  spars  that  alone  give 
promise  of  rescue  from  threatening  death. 
Such  concrete  symbols  have  in  all  ages 
been  argued  and  fought  for  until  they  have 
come  to  seem  the  essentials  of  religion ; 
and  new  moons  and  sabbaths,  decrees  of 
councils  and  articles  of  faith,  have  usurped 
the  place  of  the  living  God.  In  every  age 
the  theory  or  discovery  —  however  pro¬ 
foundly  theistic  in  its  real  import  —  which 
has  thrown  discredit  upon  such  symbols 


The  Idea  of  God.  39 

has  been  stigmatized  as  subversive  of  re¬ 
ligion,  and  its  adherents  have  been  reviled 
and  persecuted.  It  is,  of  course,  inevita¬ 
ble  that  this  should  be  so.  To  the  half- 
educated  mind  a  theory  of  divine  action 
couched  in  the  form  of  a  legend,  in  which 
God  is  depicted  as  entertaining  human 
purposes  and  swayed  by  human  passions, 
is  not  only  intelligible,  but  impressive.  It 
awakens  emotion,  it  speaks  to  the  heart, 
it  threatens  the  sinner  with  wrath  to  come 
or  heals  the  wounded  spirit  with  sweet 
whispers  of  consolation.  However  myth¬ 
ical  the  form  in  which  it  is  presented, 
however  literally  false  the  statements  of 
which  it  is  composed,  it  seems  profoundly 
real  and  substantial.  Just  in  so  far  as  it 
is  crudely  concrete,  just  in  so  far  as  its 
terms  can  be  vividly  realized  by  the  ordi¬ 
nary  mind,  does  such  a  theological  theory 
seem  weighty  and  true.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  theory  of  divine  action  which,  dis¬ 
carding  as  far  as  possible  the  aid  of  con¬ 
crete  symbols,  attempts  to  include  within 


40  The  Idea  of  God. 

its  range  the  endlessly  complex  operations 
that  are  forever  going  on  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  knowable  uni¬ 
verse, —  such  a  theory  is  to  the  ordinary 
mind  unintelligible.  It  awakens  no  emo¬ 
tion  because  it  is  not  understood.  Though 
it  may  be  the  nearest  approximation  to 
the  truth  of  which  the  human  intellect  is 
at  the  present  moment  capable,  though 
the  statements  of  which  it  is  composed 
may  be  firmly  based  upon  demonstrated 
facts  in  nature,  it  will  nevertheless  seem 
eminently  unreal  and  uninteresting.  The 
dullest  peasant  can  understand  you  when 
you  tell  him  that  honey  is  sweet,  while  a 
statement  that  the  ratio  of  the  circumfer¬ 
ence  of  a  circle  to  its  diameter  may  be 
expressed  by  the  formula  tt  =  3-I4I59 
will  sound  as  gibberish  in  his  ears  ;  yet 
the  truth  embodied  in  the  latter  statement 
is  far  more  closely  implicated  with  every 
act  of  the  peasant’s  life,  if  he  only  knew 
it,  than  the  truth  expressed  in  the  former. 
So  the  merest  child  may  know  enough  to 


The  Idea  of  God.  41 

marvel  at  the  Hebrew  legend  of  the  burn¬ 
ing  bush,  but  only  the  ripest  scholar  can 
begin  to  understand  the  character  of  the 
mighty  problems  with  which  Spinoza  was 
grappling  when  he  had  so  much  to  say 
about  natura  naturans  and  natara  natn- 
rata. 

For  these  reasons  all  attempts  to  study 
God  as  revealed  in  the  workings  of  the 
visible  universe,  and  to  characterize  the 
divine  activity  in  terms  derived  from  such 
study,  have  met  with  discouragement,  if 
not  with  obloquy.  As  substituting  a  less 
easily  comprehensible  formula  for  one  that 
is  more  easily  comprehensible,  they  seem 
to  be  frittering  away  the  idea  of  God, 
and  reducing  it  to  an  empty  abstraction. 
There  is  a  further  reason  for  the  dread 
with  which  such  studies  are  commonly  re¬ 
garded.  The  theories  of  divine  action  ac¬ 
cepted  as  orthodox  by  the  men  of  any  age 
have  been  bequeathed  to  them  by  their 
forefathers  of  an  earlier  age.  They  were 
originally  framed  with  reference  to  as- 


42  The  Idea  of  God. 

sumed  facts  of  nature  which  advancing 
knowledge  is  continually  discrediting  and 
throwing  aside.  Each  forward  step  in 
physical  science  obliges  us  to  contemplate 
the  universe  from  a  somewhat  altered  point 
of  view,  so  that  the  mutual  relations  of  its 
parts  keep  changing  as  in  an  ever-shifting 
landscape.  The  notions  of  the  world  and 
its  Maker  with  which  we  started  by  and 
by  prove  meagre  and  unsatisfying ;  they 
no  longer  fit  in  with  the  general  scheme 
of  our  knowledge.  Hence  the  men  who 
are  wedded  to  the  old  notions  are  quick  to 
sound  the  alarm.  They  would  fain  deter 
us  from  taking  the  forward  step  which 
carries  us  to  a  new  standpoint.  Beware 
of  science,  they  cry,  lest  with  its  dazzling 
discoveries  and  adventurous  speculations 
it  rob  us  of  our  souks  comfort  and  leave 
us  in  a  godless  world.  Such  in  every  age 
has  been  the  cry  of  the  more  timid  and 
halting  spirits  ;  and  their  fears  have  found 
apparent  confirmation  in  the  behaviour  of 
a  very  different  class  of  thinkers.  As  there 


The  Idea  of  God.  43 

are  those  who  live  in  perpetual  dread  of 
the  time  when  science  shall  banish  God 
from  the  world,  so,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are  those  who  •  look  forward  with 
longing  to  such  a  time,  and  in  their  impa¬ 
tience  are  continually  starting  up  and  pro¬ 
claiming  that  at  last  it  has  come.  There 
are  those  who  have  indeed  learned  a  les¬ 
son  from  Mephistopheles,  the  “  spirit  that 
forever  denies.”  These  are  they  that  say 
in  their  hearts,  “There  is  no  God,”  and 
“congratulate  themselves  that  they  are 
going  to  die  like  the  beasts.”  Rushing 
into  the  holiest  arcana  of  philosophy,  even 
where  angels  fear  to  tread,  they  lay  hold 
of  each  new  discovery  in  science  that  mod¬ 
ifies  our  view  of  the  universe,  and  herald 
it  as  a  crowning  victory  for  the  material¬ 
ists, —  a  victory  which  is  ushering  in  the 
happy  day  when  atheism  is  to  be  the  creed 
of  all  men.  It  is  in  view  of  such  philoso¬ 
phizers  that  the  astronomer,  the  chemist, 
or  the  anatomist,  whose  aim  is  the  dispas¬ 
sionate  examination  of  evidence  and  the 


44 


The  Idea  of  God. 

unbiassed  study  of  phenomena,  may  fitly 
utter  the  prayer,  “  Lord,  save  me  from  my 
friends !  ” 

Thus  through  age  after  age  has  it  fared 
with  men’s  discoveries  in  science,  and  with 
their  thoughts  about  God  and  the  soul. 
It  was  so  in  the  days  of  Galileo  and  New¬ 
ton,  and  we  have  found  it  to  be  so  in  the 
days  of  Darwin  and  Spencer.  The  the¬ 
ologian  exclaims,  If  planets  are  held  in 
place  by  gravitation  and  tangential  mo¬ 
mentum,  and  if  the  highest  forms  of  life 
have  been  developed  by  natural  selection 
and  direct  adaptation,  then  the  universe 
is  swayed  by  blind  forces,  and  nothing  is 
left  for  God  to  do  :  how  impious  and  ter¬ 
rible  the  thought !  Even  so,  echoes  the  fa¬ 
vourite  atheist,  the  Lamettrie  or  Buchner 
of  the  day;  the  universe,  it  seems,  has 
always  got  on  without  a  God,  and  accord¬ 
ingly  there  is  none  :  how  noble  and  cheer¬ 
ing  the  thought !  And  as  thus  age  after 
age  they  wrangle,  with  their  eyes  turned 
away  from  the  light,  the  world  goes  on  to 


The  Idea  of  God.  45 

larger  and  larger  knowledge  in  spite  of 
them,  and  does  not  lose  its  faith,  for  all 
these  darkeners  of  counsel  may  say.  As 
in  the  roaring  loom  of  Time  the  endless 
web  of  events  is  woven,  each  strand  shall 
make  more  and  more  clearly  visible  the 
living  garment  of  God. 


II. 

The  Rapid  Growth  of  [Modern  Knowledge. 

T  no  time  since  men  have  dwelt 
upon  the  earth  have  their  notions 
about  the  universe  undergone  so 
great  a  change  as  in  the  century  of  which 
we  are  now  approaching  the  end.  Never 
before  has  knowledge  increased  so  rapidly ; 
never  before  has  philosophical  speculation 
been  so  actively  conducted,  or  its  results 
so  widely  diffused.  It  is  a  characteristic 
of  organic  evolution  that  numerous  pro¬ 
gressive  tendencies,  for  a  long  time  incon¬ 
spicuous,  now  and  then  unite  to  bring  about 
a  striking  and  apparently  sudden  change  ; 
or  a  set  of  forces,  quietly  accumulating  in 
one  direction,  at  length  unlock  some  new 
reservoir  of  force  and  abruptly  inaugurate 
a  new  series  of  phenomena,  as  when  water 
rises  in  a  tank  until  its  overflow  sets  whirl- 


The  Idea  of  God .  47 

ing  a  system  of  toothed  wheels.  It  may 
be  that  Nature  makes  no  leaps,  but  in  this 
way  she  now  and  then  makes  very  long 
strides.  It  is  in  this  way  that  the  course 
of  organic  development  is  marked  here  and 
there  by  memorable  epochs,  which  seem  to 
open  new  chapters  in  the  history  of  the 
universe.  There  was  such  an  epoch  when 
the  common  ancestor  of  ascidian  and  am- 
phioxus  first  showed  rudimentary  traces  of 
a  vertebral  column.  There  was  such  an 
epoch  when  the  air-bladder  of  early  am¬ 
phibians  began  to  do  duty  as  a  lung. 
Greatest  of  all,  since  the  epoch,  still  hidden 
from  our  ken,  when  organic  life  began  upon 
the  surface  of  the  globe,  was  the  birth  of 
that  new  era  when,  through  a  wondrous 
change  in  the  direction  of  the  working  of 
natural  selection,  Humanity  appeared  upon 
the  scene.  In  the  career  of  the  human 
race  we  can  likewise  point  to  periods  in 
which  it  has  become  apparent  that  an  im¬ 
mense  stride  was  taken.  Such  a  period 
marks  the  dawning  of  human  history,  when 


48  The  Idea  of  God. 

after  countless  ages  of  desultory  tribal  war¬ 
fare  men  succeeded  in  uniting  into  com¬ 
paratively  stable  political  societies,  and 
through  the  medium  of  written  language 
began  handing  down  to  posterity  the  record 
of  their  thoughts  and  deeds.  Since  that 
morning  twilight  of  history  there  has  been 
no  era  so  strongly  marked,  no  change  so 
swift  or  so  far-reaching  in  the  conditions  of 
human  life,  as  that  which  began  with  the 
great  maritime  discoveries  of  the  fifteenth 
century  and  is  approaching  its  culmination 
to-day.  In  its  earlier  stages  this  modern 
era  was  signalized  by  sporadic  achievements 
of  the  human  intellect,  great  in  themselves 
and  leading  to  such  stupendous  results  as 
the  boldest  dared  not  dream  of.  Such 
achievements  were  the  invention  of  print¬ 
ing,  the  telescope  and  microscope,  the 
geometry  of  Descartes,  the  astronomy  of 
-Newton,  the  physics  of  Huyghens,  the 
physiology  of  Harvey.  Man’s  senses  were 
thus  indefinitely  enlarged  as  his  means  of 
registration  were  perfected  ;  he  became 


The  Idea  of  God.  4g 

capable  of  extending  physical  inferences 
from  the  earth  to  the  heavens;  and  he  made 
his  first  acquaintance  with  that  luminiferous 
ether  which  was  by  and  by  to  reveal  the 
intimate  structure  of  matter  in  regions  far 
beyond  the  power  of  the  microscope  to 
penetrate. 

It  is  only  within  the  present  century  that 
the  vastness  of  the  changes  thus  beginning 
to  be  wrought  has  become  apparent.  The 
scientific  achievements  of  the  human  intel¬ 
lect  no  longer  occur  sporadically  :  they  fol¬ 
low  one  upon  another,  like  the  organized 
and  systematic  conquests  of  a  resistless 
army.  Each  new  discovery  becomes  at 
once  a  powerful  implement  in  the  hands 
of  innumerable  workers,  and  each  year 
wins  over  fresh  regions  of  the  universe 
from  the  unknown  to  the  known.  Our  own 
generation  has  become  so  wonted  to  this 
unresting  march  of  discovery  that  we  al¬ 
ready  take  it  as  quite  a  matter  of  course. 
Our  minds  become  easily  deadened  to  its 
real  import,  and  the  examples  we  cite  in 


4 


jo  The  Idea  of  God . 

illustration  of  it  have  an  air  of  triteness. 
We  scarcely  need  to  be  reminded  that  all 
the  advances  made  in  locomotion,  from  the 
days  of  Nebuchadnezzar  to  those  of  Andrew 
Jackson,  were  as  nothing  compared  to  the 
change  that  has  been  wrought  within  a  few 
years  by  the  introduction  of  railroads.  In 
these  times,  when  Puck  has  fulfilled  his 
boast  and  put  a  girdle  about  the  earth  in 
forty  minutes,  we  are  not  yet  perhaps  in 
danger  of  forgetting  that  a  century  has  not 
elapsed  since  he  who  caught  the  lightning 
upon  his  kite  was  laid  in  the  grave.  Yet 
the  lesson  of  these  facts,  as  well  as  of  the 
grandmother’s  spinning-wheel  that  stands 
by  the  parlour  fireside,  is  well  to  bear 
in  mind.  The  change  therein  exemplified 
since  Penelope  plied  her  distaff  is  far  less 
than  that  which  has  occurred  within  the 
memory  of  living  men.  The  developments 
of  machinery,  which  have  worked  such 
wonders,  have  greatly  altered  the  political 
conditions  of  human  society,  so  that  a  huge 
republic  like  the  United  States  is  now  as 


The  Idea  of  God .  5/ 

snug  and  compact  and  easily  manageable 
as  the  tiny  republic  of  Switzerland  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  number  of  men 
that  can  live  upon  a  given  area  of  the 
earth’s  surface  has  been  multiplied  mani¬ 
fold,  and  while  the  mass  of  human  life  has 
thus  increased  its  value  has  been  at  the 
same  time  enhanced. 

In  these  various  applications  of  physical 
theory  to  the  industrial  arts,  countless 
minds,  of  a  class  that  formerly  were  not 
reached  by  scientific  reasoning  at  all,  are 
now  brought  into  daily  contact  with  com¬ 
plex  and  subtle  operations  of  matter,  and 
their  habits  of  thought  are  thus  notably 
modified.  Meanwhile,  in  the  higher  regions 
of  chemistry  and  molecular  physics  the 
progress  has  been  such  that  no  description 
can  do  it  justice.  When  we  reflect  that  a 
fourth  generation  has  barely  had  time  to 
appear  on  the  scene  since  Priestley  discov¬ 
ered  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  oxygen, 
we  stand  awestruck  before  the  stupendous 
pile  of  chemical  science  which  has  been 


^2  The  Idea  of  God . 

reared  in  this  brief  interval.  Our  knowl¬ 
edge  thus  gained  of  the  molecular  and 
atomic  structure  of  matter  has  been  alone 
sufficient  to  remodel  our  conceptions  of 
the  universe  from  beginning  to  end.  The 
case  of  molecular  physics  is  equally  strik¬ 
ing.  The  theory  of  the  conservation  of 
energy,  and  the  discovery  that  light,  heat, 
electricity,  and  magnetism  are  differently 
conditioned  modes  of  undulatory  motion 
transformable  each  into  the  other,  are  not 
yet  fifty  years  old.  In  physical  astronomy 
we  remained  until  1839  confined  within 
the  limits  of  the  solar  system,  and  even 
here  the  Newtonian  theory  had  not  yet  won 
its  crowning  triumph  in  the  discovery  of 
the  planet  Neptune.  To-day  we  not  only 
measure  the  distances  and  movements  of 
many  stars,  but  by  means  of  spectrum 
analysis  are  able  to  tell  what  they  are  made 
of.  It  is  more  than  a  century  since  the 
nebular  hypothesis,  by  which  we  explain 
the  development  of  stellar  systems,  was 
first  propounded  by  Immanuel  Kant,  but 


The  Idea  of  God.  53 

it  is  only  within  thirty  years  that  it  has 
been  generally  adopted  by  astronomers ; 
and  among  the  outward  illustrations  of  its 
essential  soundness  none  is  more  remarka¬ 
ble  than  its  surviving  such  an  enlargement 
of  our  knowledge.  Coming  to  the  geologic 
study  of  the  changes  that  have  taken  place 
on  the  earth’s  surface,  it  was  in  1830  that 
Sir  Charles  Lyell  published  the  book  which 
first  placed  this  study  upon  a  scientific 
basis.  Cuvier’s  classification  of  past  and 
present  forms  of  animal  life,  which  laid 
the  foundations  alike  of  comparative  anat¬ 
omy  and  of  palaeontology,  came  but  little 
earlier.  The  cell-doctrine  of  Schleiden  and 
Schwann,  prior  to  which  modern  biology 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  existed,  dates 
from  1839;  and  it  was  only  ten  years  be¬ 
fore  that  the  scientific  treatment  of  embry¬ 
ology  began  with  Von  Baer.  At  the  pres¬ 
ent  moment,  twenty-six  years  have  not 
elapsed  since  the  epoch-making  work  of 
Darwin  first  announced  to  the  world  the 
discovery  of  natural  selection. 


54  The  Idea  of  God. 

In  the  cycle  of  studies  which  are  imme¬ 
diately  concerned  with  the  career  of  man¬ 
kind,  the  rate  of  progress  has  been  no  less 
marvellous.  The  scientific  study  of  human 
speech  may  be  said  to  date  from  the  flash 
of  insight  which  led  Friedrich  Schlegel  in 
1808  to  detect  the  kinship  between  the 
Aryan  languages.  From  this  beginning 
to  the  researches  of  Fick  and  Ascoli  in 
our  own  time,  the  quantity  of  achievement 
rivals  anything  the  physical  sciences  can 
show.  The  study  of  comparative  mythol¬ 
ogy,  which  has  thrown  such  light  upon 
the  primitive  thoughts  of  mankind,  is  still 
younger,  —  is  still,  indeed,  in  its  infancy. 
The  application  of  the  comparative  method 
to  the  investigation  of  laws  and  customs, 
of  political  and  ecclesiastical  and  indus^ 
trial  systems,  has  been  carried  on  scarcely 
thirty  years  ;  yet  the  results  already  ob¬ 
tained  are  obliging  us  to  rewrite  the  his¬ 
tory  of  mankind  in  all  its  stages.  The 
great  achievements  of  archaeologists  —  the 
decipherment  of  Egyptian  hieroglyphs  and 


The  Idea  of  God .  55 

of  cuneiform  inscriptions  in  Assyria  and 
Persia,  the  unearthing  of  ancient  cities, 
the  discovery  and  classification  of  primeval 
implements  and  works  of  art  in  all  quar¬ 
ters  of  the  globe  —  belong  almost  entirely 
to  the  nineteenth  century.  These  discov¬ 
eries,  which  have  well-nigh  doubled  for  us 
the  length  of  the  historic  period,  have 
united  with  the  quite  modern  revelations 
of  geology  concerning  the  ancient  glacia¬ 
tion  of  the  temperate  zones,  to  give  us  an 
approximate  idea  of  the  age  of  the  human 
race 1  and  the  circumstances  attending  its 
diffusion  over  the  earth.  It  has  thus  at 
length  become  possible  to  obtain  some¬ 
thing  like  the  outlines  of  a  comprehensive 
view  of  the  history  of  the  creation,  from 
the  earliest  stages  of  condensation  of  our 
solar  nebula  down  to  the  very  time  in 
which  we  live,  and  to  infer  from  the  char¬ 
acteristics  of  this  past  evolution  some  of 
the  most  general  tendencies  of  the  future. 

All  this  accumulation  of  physical  and 
historical  knowledge  has  not  failed  to  re- 


$6  The  Idea  of  God. 

act  upon  our  study  of  the  human  mind 
itself.  In  books  of  logic  the  score  of  cen¬ 
turies  between  Aristotle  and  Whately  saw 
less  advance  than  the  few  years  between 
Whately  and  Mill.  In  psychology  the 
work  of  Fechner  and  Wundt  and  Spencer 
belongs  to  the  age  in  which  we  are  now 
living.  When  to  all  this  variety  of  achieve¬ 
ment  we  add  what  has  been  done  in  the 
critical  study  of  literature  and  art,  of  clas¬ 
sical  and  Biblical  philology,  and  of  met¬ 
aphysics  and  theology,  illustrating  from 
fresh  points  of  view  the  history  of  the  hu¬ 
man  mind,  the  sum  total  becomes  almost 
too  vast  to  be  comprehended.  This  cen¬ 
tury,  which  some  have  called  an  age  of 
iron,  has  been  also  an  age  of  ideas,  an  era 
of  seeking  and  finding  the  like  of  which 
was  never  known  before.  It  is  an  epoch 
the  grandeur  of  which  dwarfs  all  others 
that  can  be  named  since  the  beginning 
of  the  historic  period,  if  not  since  Man 
first  became  distinctively  human.  In  their 
mental  habits,  in  their  methods  of  inquiry. 


The  Idea  of  God.  57 

and  in  the  data  at  their  command,  “  the 
men  of  the  present  day  who  have  fully 
kept  pace  with  the  scientific  movement  are 
separated  from  the  men  whose  education 
ended  in  1830  by  an  immeasurably  wider 
gulf  than  has  ever  before  divided  one  pro¬ 
gressive  generation  of  men  from  their  pre¬ 
decessors.”  2  The  intellectual  development 
of  the  human  race  has  been  suddenly,  al¬ 
most  abruptly,  raised  to  a  higher  plane 
than  that  upon  which  it  had  proceeded 
from  the  days  of  the  primitive  troglodyte 
to  the  days  of  our  great-grandfathers.  It 
is  characteristic  of  this  higher  plane  of  de¬ 
velopment  that  the  progress  which  until 
lately  was  so  slow  must  henceforth  be 
rapid.  Men’s  minds  are  becoming  more 
flexible,  the  resistance  to  innovation  is 
weakening,  and  our  intellectual  demands 
are  multiplying  while  the  means  of  satis¬ 
fying  them  are  increasing.  Vast  as  are 
the  achievements  we  have  just  passed  in 
review,  the  gaps  in  our  knowledge  are  im¬ 
mense,  and  every  problem  that  is  solved 


5<§  The  Idea  of  God. 

but  opens  a  dozen  new  problems  that  await 
solution.  Under  such  circumstances  there 
is  no  likelihood  that  the  last  word  will  soon 
be  said  on  any  subject.  In  the  eyes  of 
the  twenty-first  century  the  science  of  the 
nineteenth  will  doubtless  seem  very  frag¬ 
mentary  and  crude.  But  the  men  of  that 
day,  and  of  all  future  time,  will  no  doubt 
point  back  to  the  age  just  passing  away 
as  the  opening  of  a  new  dispensation,  the 
dawning  of  an  era  in  which  the  intellect¬ 
ual  development  of  mankind  was  raised  to 
a  higher  plane  than  that  upon  which  it  had 
hitherto  proceeded. 

As  the  inevitable  result  of  the  thronging 
discoveries  just  enumerated,  we  find  our¬ 
selves  in  the  midst  of  a  mighty  revolution 
in  human  thought.  Time-honoured  creeds 
are  losing  their  hold  upon  men;  ancient 
symbols  are  shorn  of  their  value ;  every¬ 
thing  is  called  in  question.  The  contro¬ 
versies  of  the  day  are  not  like  those  of 
former  times.  It  is  no  longer  a  question 
of  hermeneutics,  no  longer  a  struggle  be- 


The  Idea  of  God.  59 

tween  abstruse  dogmas  of  rival  churches. 
Religion  itself  is  called  upon  to  show  why 
it  should  any  longer  claim  our  allegiance. 
There  are  those  who  deny  the  existence 
of  God.  There  are  those  who  would  ex¬ 
plain  away  the  human  soul  as  a  mere 
group  of  fleeting  phenomena  attendant 
upon  the  collocation  of  sundry  particles  of 
matter.  And  there  are  many  others  who, 
without  committing  themselves  to  these 
positions  of  the  atheist  and  the  material¬ 
ist,  have  nevertheless  come  to  regard  re¬ 
ligion  as  practically  ruled  out  from  human 
affairs.  No  religious  creed  that  man  has 
ever  devised  can  be  made  to  harmonize  in 
all  its  features  with  modern  knowledge. 
All  such  creeds  were  constructed  with  ref¬ 
erence  to  theories  of  the  universe  which 
are  now  utterly  and  hopelessly  discredited. 
How,  then,  it  is  asked,  amid  the  general 
wreck  of  old  beliefs,  can  we  hope  that  the 
religious  attitude  in  which  from  time  im¬ 
memorial  we  have  been  wont  to  contem¬ 
plate  the  universe  can  any  longer  be  main- 


60  The  Idea  of  God . 

tained?  Is  not  the  belief  in  God  perhaps 
a  dream  of  the  childhood  of  our  race,  like 
the  belief  in  elves  and  bogarts  which  once 
was  no  less  universal  ?  and  is  not  modern 
science  fast  destroying  the  one  as  it  has 
already  destroyed  the  other  ? 

Such  are  the  questions  which  we  daily 
hear  asked,  sometimes  with  flippant  eager¬ 
ness,  but  oftener  with  anxious  dread.  In 
view  of  them  it  is  well  worth  while  to 
examine  the  idea  of  God,  as  it  has  been 
entertained  by  mankind  from  the  earliest 
ages,  and  as  it  is  affected  by  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  universe  which  we  have  ac¬ 
quired  in  recent  times.  If  we  find  in  that 
idea,  as  conceived  by  untaught  thinkers  in 
the  twilight  of  antiquity,  an  element  that 
still  survives  the  widest  and  deepest  gen¬ 
eralizations  of  modern  times,  we  have  the 
strongest  possible  reason  for  believing  that 
the  idea  is  permanent  and  answers  to  an 
Eternal  Reality.  It  was  to  be  expected 
that  conceptions  of  Deity  handed  down 
from  primitive  men  should  undergo  seri- 


The  Idea  of  God.  61 

ous  modification.  If  it  can  be  shown  that 
the  essential  element  in  these  conceptions 
must  survive  the  enormous  additions  to 
our  knowledge  which  have  distinguished 
the  present  age  above  all  others  since  man 
became  man,  then  we  may  believe  that  it 
will  endure  so  long  as  man  endures  ;  for  it 
is  not  likely  that  it  can  ever  be  called  upon 
to  pass  a  severer  ordeal. 

All  this  will  presently  appear  in  a  still 
stronger  light,  when  we  have  set  forth  the 
common  characteristic  of  the  modifications 
which  the  idea  of  God  has  already  under¬ 
gone,  and  the  nature  of  the  opposition  be¬ 
tween  the  old  and  the  new  knowledge  with 
which  we  are  now  confronted.  Upon  this 
discussion  we  have  now  to  enter,  and  we 
shall  find  it  leading  us  to  the  conclusion 
that  throughout  all  possible  advances  in 
human  knowledge,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
the  essential  position  of  theism  must  re¬ 
main  unshaken. 


III. 


Sources  of  the  Theistic  Idea . 

UR  argument  may  fitly  begin  with 
an  inquiry  into  the  sources  of  the 
theistic  idea  and  the  shape  which 
it  has  universally  assumed  among  untu¬ 
tored  men.  The  most  primitive  element 
which  it  contains  is  doubtless  the  notion 
of  dependence  upon  something  outside  of 
ourselves.  We  are  born  into  a  world  con¬ 
sisting  of  forces  which  sway  our  lives  and 
over  which  we  can  exercise  no  control. 
The  individual  man  can  indeed  make  his 
volition  count  for  a  very  little  in  modify¬ 
ing  the  course  of  events,  but  this  end 
necessitates  strict  and  unceasing  obedi¬ 
ence  to  powers  that  cannot  be  tampered 
with.  To  the  behaviour  of  these  external 
powers  our  actions  must  be  adapted  under 
penalty  of  death.  And  upon  grounds  no 


The  Idea  of  God.  63 

less  firm  than  those  on  which  we  believe 
in  any  externality  whatever,  we  recognize 
that  these  forces  antedated  our  birth  and 
will  endure  after  we  have  disappeared 
from  the  scene.  No  one  supposes  that  he 
makes  the  world  for  himself,  so  that  it  is 
born  and  dies  with  him.  Every  one  per¬ 
force  contemplates  the  world  as  something 
existing  independently  of  himself,  as  some¬ 
thing  into  which  he  has  come,  and  from 
which  he  is  to  go  ;  and  for  his  coming 
and  his  going,  as  well  as  for  what  he  does 
while  part  of  the  world,  he  is  dependent 
upon  something  that  is  not  himself. 

Between  ancient  and  modern  man,  as 
between  the  child  and  the  adult,  there  can 
be  no  essential  difference  in  the  recogni¬ 
tion  of  this  fundamental  fact  of  life.  The 
primitive  man  could  not,  indeed,  state  the 
case  in  this  generalized  form,  any  more 
than  a  young  child  could  state  it,  but  the 
facts  which  the  statement  covers  were  as 
real  to  him  as  they  are  to  us.*  The  prim- 

*  See  note  A  at  the  end  of  the  volume. 


64  The  Idea  of  God. 

itive  man  knew  nothing  of  a  world,  in  the 
modern  sense  of  the  word.  The  concep¬ 
tion  of  that  vast  consensus  of  forces  which 
we  call  the  world  or  universe  is  a  some¬ 
what  late  result  of  culture ;  it  was  reached 
only  through  ages  of  experience  and  re¬ 
flection.  Such  an  idea  lay  beyond  the 
horizon  of  the  primitive  man.  But  while 
he  knew  not  the  world,  he  knew  bits  and 
pieces  of  it  ;  or,  to  vary  the  expression,  he 
had  his  little  world,  chaotic  and  fragmen¬ 
tary  enough,  but  full  of  dread  reality  for 
him.  He  knew  what  it  was  to  deal  from 
birth  until  death  with  powers  far  mightier 
than  himself.  To  explain  these  powers,  to 
make  their  actions  in  any  wise  intelligible, 
he  had  but  one  available  resource  ;  and 
this  was  so  obvious  that  he  could  not  fail 
to  employ  it.  The  only  source  of  action 
of  which  he  knew  anything,  since  it  was 
the  only  source  which  lay  within  himself, 
was  the  human  will  ; 3  and  in  this  respect, 
after  all,  the  philosophy  of  the  primeval 
savage  was  not  so  very  far  removed  from 


The  Idea  of  God.  65 

that  of  the  modern  scientific  thinker.  The 
primitive  man  could  see  that  his  own  ac¬ 
tions  were  prompted  by  desire  and  guided 
by  intelligence,  and  he  supposed  the  same 
to  be  the  case  with  the  sun  and  the  wind, 
the  frost  and  the  lightning.  All  the  forces 
of  outward  nature,  so  far  as  they  came 
into  visible  contact  with  his  life,  he  per¬ 
sonified  as  great  beings  which  were  to  be 
contended  with  or  placated.  This  prime¬ 
val  philosophy,  once  universal  among  men, 
has  lasted  far  into  the  historic  period,  and 
it  is  only  slowly  and  bit  by  bit  that  it  has 
been  outgrown  by  the  most  highly  civil¬ 
ized  races.  Indeed  the  half-civilized  ma¬ 
jority  of  mankind  have  by  no  means  as 
yet  cast  it  aside,  and  among  savage  tribes 
we  may  still  see  it  persisting  in  all  its 
original  crudity.  In  the  mythologies  of 
all  peoples,  of  the  Greeks  and  Hindus  and 
Norsemen,  as  well  as  of  the  North  Ameri¬ 
can  Indians  and  the  dwellers  in  the  South 
Sea  islands,  we  find  the  sun  personified 
as  an  archer  or  wanderer,  the  clouds  as 


5 


66  The  Idea  of  God . 

gigantic  birds,  the  tempest  as  a  devouring 
dragon  ;  and  the  tales  of  gods  and  heroes, 
as  well  as  of  trolls  and  fairies,  are  made 
up  of  scattered  and  distorted  fragments 
of  nature-myths,  of  which  the  primitive 
meaning  had  long  been  forgotten  when 
the  ingenuity  of  modern  scholarship  laid 
it  bare.4 

In  all  this  personification  of  physical 
phenomena  our  prehistoric  ancestors  were 
greatly  assisted  by  that  theory  of  ghosts 
which  was  perhaps  the  earliest  speculative 
effort  of  the  human  mind.  Travellers 
have  now  and  then  reported  the  existence 
of  races  of  men  quite  destitute  of  religion, 
or  of  what  the  observer  has  learned  to 
recognize  as  religion  ;  but  no  one  has  ever 
discovered  a  race  of  men  devoid  of  a  belief 
in  ghosts.  The  mass  of  crude  inference 
which  makes  up  the  savage’s  philosophy 
of  nature  is  largely  based  upon  the  hypoth¬ 
esis  that  every  man  has  another  self \  a 
double,  or  wraith,  or  ghost.  This  “hypoth¬ 
esis  of  the  other  self  which  serves  to  ac- 


The  Idea  of  God .  6y 

count  for  the  savage’s  wanderings  during 
sleep  in  strange  lands  and  among  strange 
people,  serves  also  to  account  for  the  pres¬ 
ence  in  his  dreams  of  parents,  comrades, 
or  enemies,  known  to  be  dead  and  buried. 
The  other  self  of  the  dreamer  meets  and 
converses  with  the  other  selves  of  his  dead 
brethren,  joins  with  them  in  the  hunt,  or 
sits  down  with  them  to  the  wild  cannibal 
banquet.  Thus  arises  the  belief  in  an 
ever-present  world  of  ghosts,  a  belief  which 
the  entire  experience  of  uncivilized  man 
goes  to  strengthen  and  expand.”5  Count¬ 
less  tales  and  superstitions  of  savage  races 
show  that  the  hypothesis  of  the  other  self 
is  used  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  hys¬ 
teria  and  epilepsy,  of  shadows,  of  echoes, 
and  even  of  the  reflection  of  face  and  ges¬ 
tures  in  still  water.  It  is  not  only  men, 
moreover,  who  are  provided  with  other 
selves.  Dumb  beasts  and  plants,  stone 
hatchets  and  arrows,  articles  of  clothing 
and  food,  all  have  their  ghosts  ;6  and  when 
the  dead  chief  is  buried,  his  wives  and 


68  The  Idea  of  God. 

servants,  his  dogs  and  horses,  are  slain 
to  keep  him  company,  and  weapons  and 
trinkets  are  placed  in  his  tomb  to  be  used 
in  the  spirit-land.  Burial-places  of  primi¬ 
tive  men,  ages  before  the  dawn  of  history, 
bear  testimony  to  the  immense  antiquity 
of  this  savage  philosophy.  From  this 
wholesale  belief  in  ghosts  to  the  interpre¬ 
tation  of  the  wind  or  the  lightning  as  a 
person  animated  by  an  indwelling  soul  and 
endowed  with  quasi-human  passions  and 
purposes,  the  step  is  not  a  long  one.  The 
latter  notion  grows  almost  inevitably  out 
of  the  former,  so  that  all  races  of  men 
without  exception  have  entertained  it. 
That  the  mighty  power  which  uproots 
trees  and  drives  the  storm-clouds  across 
the  sky  should  resemble  a  human  soul  is 
to  the  savage  an  unavoidable  inference. 
“  If  the  fire  burns  down  his  hut,  it  is  be¬ 
cause  the  fire  is  a  person  with  a  soul,  and 
is  angry  with  him,  and  needs  to  be  coaxed 
into  a  kindlier  mood  by  means  of  prayer 
or  sacrifice.”  He  has  no  alternative  but 


The  Idea  of  God.  69 

to  regard  fire-soul  as  something  akin  to 
human-soul ;  his  philosophy  makes  no  dis¬ 
tinction  between  the  human  ghost  and  the 
elemental  demon  or  deity. 

It  was  in  accordance  with  this  primitive 
theory  of  things  that  the  earliest  form  of 
religious  worship  was  developed.  In  all 
races  of  men,  so  far  as  can  be  determined, 
this  was  the  worship  of  ancestors.7  The 
other  self  of  the  dead  chieftain  continued 
after  death  to  watch  over  the  interests  of 
the  tribe,  to  defend  it  against  the  attacks 
of  enemies,  to  reward  brave  warriors,  and 
to  punish  traitors  and  cowards.  His  fa¬ 
vour  must  be  propitiated  with  ceremonies 
like  those  in  which  a  subject  does  homage 
to  a  living  ruler.  If  offended  by  neglect 
or  irreverent  treatment,  defeat  in  battle, 
damage  by  flood  or  fire,  visitations  of  fam¬ 
ine  or  pestilence,  were  interpreted  as 
marks  of  his  anger.  Thus  the  spirits  ani¬ 
mating  the  forces  of  nature  were  often 
identified  with  the  ghosts  of  ancestors,  and 
mythology  is  filled  with  traces  of  the  con- 


jo  The  Idea  of  God . 

fusion.  In  the  Vedic  religion  the  pitris , 
or  “ fathers,”  live  in  the  sky  along  with 
Yama,  the  original  pitri  of  mankind  :  they 
are  very  busy  with  the  weather  ;  they  send 
down  rain  to  refresh  the  thirsty  earth,  or 
anon  parch  the  fields  till  the  crops  perish 
of  drought  ;  and  they  rush  along  in  the 
roaring  tempest,  like  the  weird  host  of  the 
wild  huntsman  Wodan.  To  the  ancient 
Greek  the  blue  sky  Uranos  was  the  father 
of  gods  and  men,  and  throughout  antiq¬ 
uity  this  mingling  of  ancestor-worship  with 
nature-worship  was  general.  With  the 
systematic  development  of  ethnic  relig¬ 
ions,  in  some  instances  ancestor-worship 
remained  dominant,  as  with  the  Chinese, 
the  Japanese,  and  the  Romans ;  in  others, 
a  polytheism  based  upon  nature-worship 
acquired  supremacy,  as  with  the  Hindus 
and  Greeks,  and  our  own  Teutonic  fore¬ 
fathers.  The  great  divinities  of  the  Hel¬ 
lenic  pantheon  are  all  personifications  of 
physical  phenomena.  At  a  comparatively 
late  date  the  Roman  adopted  these  divin- 


The  Idea  of  God.  ji 

ities  and  paid  to  them  a  fashionable  and 
literary  homage,  but  his  solemn  and  heart¬ 
felt  rites  were  those  with  which  he  wor¬ 
shipped  the  lares  and  penates  in  the  pri¬ 
vacy  of  his  home.  His  hospitable  treat¬ 
ment  of  the  gods  of  a  vanquished  people 
was  the  symptom  of  a  commingling  of  the 
various  local  religions  of  antiquity  which 
insured  their  mutual  destruction  and  pre¬ 
pared  the  way  for  their  absorption  into  a 
far  grander  and  truer  system.8 


IV. 


Development  of  Monotheism. 

UCH  an  allusion  to  the  Romans, 
in  an  exposition  like  the  present 
one,  is  not  without  its  signifi¬ 
cance.  It  was  partly  through  political  cir¬ 
cumstances  that  a  truly  theistic  idea  was 
developed  out  of  the  chaotic  and  fragmen¬ 
tary  ghost  theories  and  nature-worship  of 
the  primeval  world.  To  the  framing  of 
the  vastest  of  all  possible  conceptions,  the 
idea  of  God,  man  came  but  slowly.  This 
nature-worship  and  ancestor-worship  of 
early  times  was  scarcely  theism.  In  their 
recognition  of  man’s  utter  dependence 
upon  something  outside  of  himself  which 
yet  was  not  wholly  unlike  himself,  these 
primitive  religions  contained  the  essential 
germ  out  of  which  theism  was  to  grow  ; 
but  it  is  a  long  way  from  the  propitiation 


The  Idea  of  God.  73 

of  ghosts  and  the  adoration  of  the  rising 
sun  to  the  worship  of  the  infinite  and 
eternal  God,  the  maker  of  heaven  and 
earth,  in  whom  we  live,  and  move,  and 
have  our  being.  Before  men  could  arrive 
at  such  a  conception,  it  was  necessary  for 
them  to  obtain  some  integral  idea  of  the 
heaven  and  the  earth  ;  it  was  necessary 
for  them  to  frame,  however  inadequately, 
the  conception  of  a  physical  universe. 
Such  a  conception  had  been  reached  by 
civilized  peoples  before  the  Christian  era, 
and  by  the  Greeks  a  remarkable  begin¬ 
ning  had  been  made  in  the  generalization 
and  interpretation  of  physical  phenomena. 
The  intellectual  atmosphere  of  Alexan¬ 
dria,  for  two  centuries  before  and  three 
centuries  after  the  time  of  Christ,  was 
more  modern  than  anything  that  followed 
down  to  the  days  of  Bacon  and  Descartes ; 
and  all  the  leaders  of  Greek  thought  since 
Anaxagoras  had  been  virtually  or  avowed¬ 
ly  monotheists.  As  the  phenomena  of  na¬ 
ture  were  generalized,  the  deities  or  super- 


j4  The  Idea  of  God. 

human  beings  regarded  as  their  sources 
were  likewise  generalized,  until  the  con¬ 
ception  of  nature  as  a  whole  gave  rise  to 
the  conception  of  a  single  Deity  as  the 
author  and  ruler  of  nature  ;  and  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  the  order  of  its  genesis,  this 
notion  of  Deity  was  still  the  notion  of  a 
Being  possessed  of  psychical  attributes, 
and  in  some  way  like  unto  Man. 

But  there  was  another  cause,  besides 
scientific  generalization,  which  led  men’s 
minds  toward  monotheism.  The  concep¬ 
tion  of  tutelar  deities,  which  was  the  most 
prominent  practical  feature  of  ancestor- 
worship,  was  directly  affected  by  the  po¬ 
litical  development  of  the  peoples  of  an¬ 
tiquity.  As  tribes  were  consolidated  into 
nations,  the  tutelar  gods  of  the  tribes  be¬ 
came  generalized,  or  the  god  of  some  lead¬ 
ing  tribe  came  to  supersede  his  fellows, 
until  the  result  was  a  single  national  deity, 
at  first  regarded  as  the  greatest  among 
gods,  afterwards  as  the  only  God.  The 
most  striking  instance  of  this  method  of 


The  Idea  of  God.  75 

development  is  afforded  by  the  Hebrew 
conception  of  Jehovah.  The  most  primi¬ 
tive  form  of  Hebrew  religion  discernible 
in  the  Old  Testament  is  a  fetichism,  or 
very  crude  polytheism,  in  which  ancestor- 
worship  becomes  more  prominent  than 
nature-worship.  At  first  the  teraphim ,  or 
tutelar  household  deities,  play  an  impor¬ 
tant  part,  but  nature-gods,  such  as  Baal, 
and  Moloch,  and  Astarte,  are  extensively 
worshipped.  It  is  the  plural  elohim  who 
create  the  earth,  and  whose  sons  visit  the 
daughters  of  antediluvian  men.  The  tute¬ 
lar  deity,  Jehovah,  is  originally  thought  of 
as  one  of  the  elohim ,  then  as  chief  among 
elohim ,  and  Lord  of  the  hosts  of  heaven. 
Through  his  favour  his  chosen  prophet 
overcomes  the  prophets  of  Baal,  he  is 
greater  than  the  deities  of  neighbouring 
peoples,  he  is  the  only  true  god,  and  thus 
finally  he  is  thought  of  as  the  only  God, 
and  his  name  becomes  the  symbol  of  mon¬ 
otheism.  The  Jews  have  always  been  one 
of  the  most  highly-gifted  races  in  the 


7<5  The  Idea  of  God. 

world.  In  antiquity  they  developed  an 
intense  sentiment  of  nationality,  and  for 
earnestness  and  depth  of  ethical  feeling 
they  surpassed  all  other  peoples.  The 
conception  of  Jehovah  set  forth  in  the 
writings  of  the  prophets  was  the  loftiest 
conception  of  deity  anywhere  attained  be¬ 
fore  the  time  of  Christ ;  in  ethical  value 
it  immeasurably  surpassed  anything  to  be 
found  in  the  pantheon  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans.  It  was  natural  that  such  a 
conception  of  deity  should  be  adopted 
throughout  the  Roman  world.  At  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  the  Christian  era  the  classic 
polytheism  had  well-nigh  lost  its  hold  upon 
men’s  minds  ;  its  value  had  become  chiefly 
literary,  as  a  mere  collection  of  pretty  sto¬ 
ries  ;  it  had  begun  its  descent  into  the 
humble  realm  of  folk-lore.  For  want  of 
anything  better  people  had  recourse  to 
elaborate  Eastern  ceremonials,  or  con¬ 
tented  themselves  with  the  time-honoured 
domestic  worship  of  the  lares  and  penates. 
Yet  their  minds  were  ripe  for  some  kind 


The  Idea  of  God .  77 

of  monotheism,  and  in  order  that  the  Jew¬ 
ish  conception  should  come  to  be  gen* 
erally  adopted,  it  was  only  necessary  that 
it  should  be  freed  from  its  limitations  of 
nationality,  and  that  Jehovah  should  be 
set  forth  as  Sustainer  of  the  universe  and 
Father  of  all  mankind.  This  was  done  by 
Jesus  and  Paul.  The  theory  of  divine  ac¬ 
tion  implied  throughout  the  gospels  and 
the  epistles  was  the  first  complete  mono¬ 
theism  attained  by  mankind,  or  at  least  by 
that  portion  of  it  from  which  our  modern 
civilization  has  descended.  Here  for  the 
first  time  we  have  the  idea  of  God  disso¬ 
ciated  from  the  limiting  circumstances 
with  which  it  had  been  entangled  in  all 
the  ethnic  religions  of  antiquity.  Individ¬ 
ual  thinkers  here  and  there  had  already, 
doubtless,  reached  an  equally  true  concep¬ 
tion,  as  was  shown  by  Kleanthes  in  his 
sublime  hymn  to  Zeus  ; 9  but  it  was  now 
for  the  first  time  set  forth  in  such  wise  as 
to  win  assent  from  the  common  folk  as 
well  as  the  philosophers,  and  to  make  its 


y8  The  Idea  of  God. 

way  into  the  hearts  of  all  men.  Its  ac¬ 
ceptance  was  hastened,  and  its  hold  upon 
mankind  immeasurably  strengthened,  by 
the  divinely  beautiful  ethical  teaching  in 
which  Jesus  couched  it,  —  that  teaching, 
so  often  misunderstood  yet  so  profoundly 
true,  which  heralded  the  time  when  Man 
shall  have  thrown  off  the  burden  of  his 
bestial  inheritance  and  strife  and  sorrow 
shall  cease  from  the  earth.10 

We  shall  presently  see  that  in  its  funda¬ 
mental  features  the  theism  of  Jesus  and 
Paul  was  so  true  that  it  must  endure  as 
long  as  man  endures.  Changes  of  state¬ 
ment  may  alter  the  outward  appearance  of 
it,  but  the  kernel  of  truth  will  remain  the 
same  forever.  But  the  shifting  body  of  re¬ 
ligious  doctrine  known  as  Christianity  has 
at  various  times  contained  much  that  is 
unknown  to  this  pure  theism,  and  much 
that  has  shown  itself  to  be  ephemeral  in  its 
hold  upon  men.  The  change  from  poly¬ 
theism  to  monotheism  could  not  be  thor¬ 
oughly  accomplished  all  at  once.  As 


The  Idea  of  God .  79 

Christianity  spread  over  the  Roman  world 
it  became  encrusted  with  pagan  notions 
and  observances,  and  a  similar  process 
went  on  during  the  conversion  of  the  Teu¬ 
tonic  barbarians.  Yuletide  and  Easter  and 
other  church  holidays  were  directly  adopted 
from  the  old  nature-worship  ;  the  adoration 
of  tutelar  household  deities  survived  in  the 
homage  paid  to  patron  saints ;  and  the 
worship  of  the  Berecynthian  Mother  was 
continued  in  that  of  the  Virgin  Mary.11 
Even  the  name  God \  applied  to  the  Deity 
throughout  Teutonic  Christendom,  seems 
to  be  neither  more  nor  less  than  Wodan, 
the  personification  of  the  storm-wind,  the 
supreme  divinity  of  our  pagan  forefathers.* 
That  Christianity  should  thus  have  re¬ 
tained  names  and  symbols  and  rites  belong¬ 
ing  to  heathen  antiquity  was  inevitable. 
The  system  of  Christian  theism  was  the 
work  of  some  of  the  loftiest  minds  that  have 
ever  appeared  upon  the  earth  ;  but  it  was 
adopted  by  millions  of  men  and  women,  of 


*  See  note  B.  at  the  end  of  the  volume. 


80  The  Idea  of  God. 

all  degrees  of  knowledge  and  ignorance,  of 
keenness  and  dullness,  of  spirituality  and 
grossness,  and  these  brought  to  it  their 
various  inherited  notions  and  habits  of 
thought.  In  all  its  ages,  therefore,  Chris¬ 
tian  theism  has  meant  one  thing  to  one 
person,  and  another  thing  to  another. 
While  the  highest  Christian  minds  have 
always  been  monotheistic,  the  multitude 
have  outgrown  polytheism  but  slowly  ; 
and  even  the  monotheism  of  the  highest 
minds  has  been  coloured  by  notions  ulti¬ 
mately  derived  from  the  primeval  ghost- 
world  which  have  interfered  with  its  pu¬ 
rity,  and  have  seriously  hampered  men  in 
their  search  after  truth. 

In  illustration  of  this  point  we  have  now 
to  notice  two  strongly  contrasted  views  of 
the  divine  nature  which  have  been  held 
by  Christian  theists,  and  to  observe  their 
bearings  upon  the  scientific  thought  of 
modern  times. 


V. 

The  Idea  of  God  as  immanent  in  the  World . 

E  have  seen  that  since  the  prim¬ 
itive  savage  philosophy  did  not 
distinguish  between  the  human 
ghost  and  the  elemental  demon  or  deity, 
the  religion  of  antiquity  was  an  inextrica¬ 
ble  tangle  of  ancestor-worship  with  nature- 
worship.  Nevertheless,  among  some  peo¬ 
ples  the  one,  among  others  the  other, 
became  predominant.  I  think  it  can  hardly 
be  an  accidental  coincidence  that  nature- 
worship  predominated  with  the  Greeks  and 
Hindus,  the  only  peoples  of  antiquity  who 
accomplished  anything  in  the  exact  sci¬ 
ences,  or  in  metaphysics.  The  capacity  for 
abstract  thinking  which  led  the  Hindu  to 
originate  algebra,  and  the  Greek  to  orig¬ 
inate  geometry,  and  both  to  attempt  elabo¬ 
rate  scientific  theories  of  the  universe,  — * 


82  The  Idea  of  God. 

this  same  capacity  revealed  itself  in  the 
manner  in  which  they  deified  the  powers 
of  nature.  They  were  able  to  imagine  the 
indwelling  spirit  of  the  sun  or  the  storm 
without  help  from  the  conception  of  an 
individual  ghost.  Such  being  the  general 
capacity  of  the  people,  we  can  readily  un¬ 
derstand  how,  when  it  came  to  monotheism, 
their  most  eminent  thinkers  should  have 
been  able  to  frame  the  conception  of  God 
acting  in  and  through  the  powers  of  nature, 
without  the  aid  of  any  grossly  anthropomor¬ 
phic  symbolism.  In  this  connection  it  is 
interesting  to  observe  the  characteristics 
of  the  idea  of  God  as  conceived  by  the 
three  greatest  fathers  of  the  Greek  church, 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  Origen,  and  Atha¬ 
nasius.  The  philosophy  of  these  profound 
and  vigorous  thinkers  was  in  large  meas¬ 
ure  derived  from  the  Stoics.  They  regarded 
Deity  as  immanent  in  the  universe,  and 
eternally  operating  through  natural  laws. 
In  their  view  God  is  not  a  localizable  per¬ 
sonality,  remote  from  the  world,  and  acting 


The  Idea  of  God,  83 

upon  it  only  by  means  of  occasional  portent 
and  prodigy  ;  nor  is  the  world  a  lifeless 
machine  blindly  working  after  some  preor¬ 
dained  method,  and  only  feeling  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  God  in  so  far  as  he  now  and  then 
sees  fit  to  interfere  with  its  normal  course 
of  procedure.  On  the  contrary,  God  is  the 
ever-present  life  of  the  world ;  it  is  through 
him  that  all  things  exist  from  moment  to 
moment,  and  the  natural  sequence  of  events 
is  a  perpetual  revelation  of  the  divine  wis¬ 
dom  and  goodness.  In  accordance  with 
this  fundamental  view,  Clement,  for  exam¬ 
ple,  repudiated  the  Gnostic  theory  of  the 
vileness  of  matter,  condemned  asceticism, 
and  regarded  the  world  as  hallowed  by  the 
presence  of  indwelling  Deity.  Knowing 
no  distinction  “  between  what  man  discov¬ 
ers  and  what  God  reveals,”  he  explained 
Christianity  as  a  natural  development  from 
the  earlier  religious  thought  of  mankind. 
It  was  essential  to  his  idea  of  the  divine 
perfection  that  the  past  should  contain 
within  itself  all  the  germs  of  the  future  ; 


84  The  Idea  of  God. 

and  accordingly  he  attached  but  slight  value 
to  tales  of  miracle,  and  looked  upon  salva¬ 
tion  as  the  normal  ripening  of  the  higher 
spiritual  qualities  of  man  “  under  the  guid¬ 
ance  of  immanent  Deity.”  The  views  of 
Clement’s  disciple  Origen  are  much  like 
those  of  his  master.  Athanasius  ventured 
much  farther  into  the  bewildering  regions 
of  metaphysics.  Yet  in  his  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  by  which  he  overcame  the  visible 
tendency  toward  polytheism  in  the  theories 
of  Arius,  and  averted  the  threatened  danger 
of  a  compromise  between  Christianity  and 
Paganism,  he  proceeded  upon  the  lines 
which  Clement  had  marked  out.  In  his 
very  suggestive  work  on  “The  Continuity 
of  Christian  Thought,”  Professor  Alexander 
Allen  thus  sets  forth  the  Athanasian  point 
of  view  :  “  In  the  formula  of  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Spirit,  as  three  distinct  and  co¬ 
equal  members  in  the  one  divine  essence, 
there  was  the  recognition  and  the  recon¬ 
ciliation  of  the  philosophical  schools  which 
had  divided  the  ancient  world.  In  the  idea 


The  Idea  of  God.  85 

of  the  eternal  Father  the  Oriental  mind 
recognized  what  it  liked  to  call  the  profound 
abyss  of  being,  that  which  lies  back  of  all 
phenomena,  the  hidden  mystery  which  lends 
awe  to  human  minds  seeking  to  know  the 
divine.  In  the  doctrine  of  the  eternal  Son 
revealing  the  Father,  immanent  in  nature 
and  humanity  as  the  life  and  light  shining 
through  all  created  things,  the  divine  reason 
in  which  the  human  reason  shares,  there 
was  the  recognition  of  the  truth  after  which 
Plato  and  Aristotle  and  the  Stoics  were 
struggling,  —  the  tie  which  binds  the  cre¬ 
ation  to  God  in  the  closest  organic  relation¬ 
ship.  In  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
the  church  guarded  against  any  pantheistic 
confusion  of  God  with  the  world  by  uphold¬ 
ing  the  life  of  the  manifested  Deity  as  es¬ 
sentially  ethical  or  spiritual,  revealing  itself 
in  humanity  in  its  highest  form,  only  in  so 
far  as  humanity  recognized  its  calling  and 
through  the  Spirit  entered  into  communion 
with  the  Father  and  the  Son.” 

Great  as  was  the  service  which  these 


86  The  Idea  of  God. 

views  of  Athanasius  rendered  in  the  fourth 
century  of  our  era,  they  are  scarcely  to  be 
regarded  as  a  permanent  or  essential  fea¬ 
ture  of  Christian  theism.  The  metaphysic 
in  which  they  are  couched  is  alien  to  the 
metaphysic  of  our  time,  yet  through  this 
vast  difference  it  is  all  the  more  instructive 
to  note  how  closely  Athanasius  approaches 
the  confines  of  modern  scientific  thought, 
simply  through  his  fundamental  conception 
of  God  as  the  indwelling  life  of  the  universe. 
We  shall  be  still  more  forcibly  struck  with 
this  similarity  when  we  come  to  consider 
the  character  impressed  upon  our  idea  of 
God  by  the  modern  doctrine  of  evolution. 


VI. 

The  Idea  of  God  as  remote  from  the  World. 

UT  this  Greek  conception  of  divine 
immanence  did  not  find  favour  with 
the  Latin-speaking  world.  There 
a  very  different  notion  prevailed,  the  ori¬ 
gin  of  which  may  be  traced  to  the  mental 
habits  attending  the  primitive  ancestor- 
worship.  Out  of  materials  furnished  by 
the  ghost-world  a  crude  kind  of  monothe¬ 
ism  could  be  reached  by  simply  carrying 
back  the  thought  to  a  single  ghost-deity 
as  the  original  ancestor  of  all  the  others. 
Some  barbarous  races  have  gone  as  far  as 
this,  as  for  example  the  Zulus,  who  have 
developed  the  doctrine  of  divine  ancestors 
so  far  as  to  recognize  a  first  ancestor,  the 
Great  Father,  Unkulunkulu,  who  created 
the  world.12  The  kind  of  theism  reached 
by  this  process  of  thought  differs  essen- 


88  The  Idea  of  God . 

tially  from  the  theism  reached  through  the 
medium  of  nature-worship.  For  whereas 
in  the  latter  case  the  god  of  the  sky  or 
the  sea  is  regarded  as  a  mysterious  spirit 
acting  in  and  through  the  phenomena,  in 
the  former  case  the  phenomena  are  re¬ 
garded  as  coerced  into  activity  by  some 
power  existing  outside  of  them,  and  this 
power  is  conceived  as  manlike  in  the  crud¬ 
est  sense,  having  been  originally  thought 
of  as  the  ghost  of  some  man  who  once 
lived  upon  the  earth.  In  the  monotheism 
which  is  reached  by  thinking  along  these 
lines  of  inference,  the  universe  is  con¬ 
ceived  as  an  inert  lifeless  machine,  im¬ 
pelled  by  blind  forces  which  have  been 
set  acting  from  without ;  and  God  is  con¬ 
ceived  as  existing  apart  from  the  world  in 
solitary  inaccessible  majesty,  —  “  an  ab¬ 
sentee  God,”  as  Carlyle  says,  “  sitting  idle 
ever  since  the  first  Sabbath,  at  the  outside 
of  his  universe,  and  ‘seeing  it  go.’  ”  This 
conception  demands  less  of  the  intellect 
than  the  conception  of  God  as  immanent 


The  Idea  of  God.  8g 

in  the  universe.  It  requires  less  grasp  of 
mind  and  less  width  of  experience,  and  it 
has  accordingly  been  much  the  more  com¬ 
mon  conception.  The  idea  of  the  indwell¬ 
ing  God  is  an  attempt  to  reach  out  toward 
the  reality,  and  as  such  it  taxes  the  pow¬ 
ers  of  the  finite  mind.  The  idea  of  God 
external  to  the  universe  is  a  symbol  which 
in  no  wise  approaches  the  reality,  and  for 
that  very  reason  it  does  not  tax  the  men¬ 
tal  powers  ;  there  is  an  aspect  of  finality 
about  it,  in  which  the  ordinary  mind  rests 
content  and  complains  of  whatever  seeks 
to  disturb  its  repose. 

I  must  not  be  understood  as  ignoring 
the  fact  that  this  lower  species  of  theism 
has  been  entertained  by  some  of  the  lofti¬ 
est  minds  of  our  race,  both  in  ancient  and 
in  modern  times.  When  once  such  an 
ever-present  conception  as  the  idea  of  God 
has  become  intertwined  with  the  whole 
body  of  the  thoughts  of  mankind,  it  is 
very  difficult  for  the  most  powerful  and 
subtle  intelligence  to  change  the  form  it 


go  The  Idea  of  God. 

has  taken.  It  has  become  so  far  organ¬ 
ized  into  the  texture  of  the  mind  that  it 
abides  there  unconsciously,  like  our  funda¬ 
mental  axioms  about  number  and  magni¬ 
tude  ;  it  sways  our  thought  hither  and 
thither  without  our  knowing  it.  The  two 
forms  of  theism  here  contrasted  have  slow¬ 
ly  grown  up  under  the  myriad  unassign¬ 
able  influences  that  in  antiquity  caused  na¬ 
ture-worship  to  predominate  among  some 
people  and  ancestor-worship  among  oth¬ 
ers  ;  they  have  coloured  all  the  philoso¬ 
phizing  that  has  been  done  for  more  than 
twenty  centuries  ;  and  it  is  seldom  that  a 
thinker  educated  under  the  one  form  ever 
comes  to  adopt  the  other  and  habitually 
employ  it,  save  under  the  mighty  influ¬ 
ence  of  modern  science,  the  tendency  of 
which,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  is  all  in 
one  direction. 

Among  ancient  thinkers  the  view  of 
Deity  as  remote  from  the  world  prevailed 
with  the  followers  of  Epikuros,  who  held 
that  the  immortal  gods  could  not  be  sup- 


The  Idea  of  God.  91 

posed  to  trouble  themselves  about  the  pal¬ 
try  affairs  of  men,  but  lived  a  blessed  life 
of  their  own,  undisturbed  in  the  far-off  em¬ 
pyrean.  This  left  the  world  quite  under 
the  sway  of  blind  forces,  and  thus  we  find 
it  depicted  in  the  marvellous  poem  of  Lu¬ 
cretius,  one  of  the  loftiest  monuments  of 
Latin  genius.  It  is  to  all  appearance  an 
atheistic  world,  albeit  the  author  was  per¬ 
haps  more  profoundly  religious  in  spirit 
than  any  other  Roman  that  ever  lived, 
save  Augustine ;  yet  to  his  immediate 
scientific  purpose  this  atheism  was  no 
drawback.  When  we  are  investigating 
natural  phenomena,  with  intent  to  explain 
them  scientifically,  our  proper  task  is  sim¬ 
ply  to  ascertain  the  physical  conditions 
under  which  they  occur,  and  the  less  we 
meddle  with  metaphysics  or  theology  the 
better.  As  Laplace  said,  the  mathema¬ 
tician,  in  solving  his  equations,  does  not 
need  “the  hypothesis  of  God.”  13  To  the 
scientific  investigator,  as  such,  the  forces 
of  nature  are  doubtless  blind,  like  the  x 


92  The  Idea  of  God. 

and  y  in  algebra,  but  this  is  only  so  long 
as  he  contents  himself  with  describing 
their  modes  of  operation  ;  when  he  under¬ 
takes  to  explain  them  philosophically,  as 
we  shall  see,  he  can  in  no  wise  dispense 
with  his  theistic  hypothesis.  The  Lucre- 
tian  philosophy,  therefore,  admirable  as  a 
scientific  coordination  of  such  facts  about 
the  physical  universe  as  were  then  known, 
goes  but  very  little  way  as  a  philosophy. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  this  atheism 
followed  directly  from  that  species  of  the¬ 
ism  which  placed  God  outside  of  his  uni¬ 
verse.  We  shall  find  the  case  of  modern 
atheism  to  be  quite  similar.  As  soon  as 
this  crude  and  misleading  conception  of 
God  is  refuted,  as  the  whole  progress  of 
scientific  knowledge  tends  to  refute  it,  the 
modern  atheist  or  positivist  falls  back 
upon  his  universe  of  blind  forces  and  con¬ 
tents  himself  with  it,  while  zealously  shout¬ 
ing  from  the  housetops  that  this  is  the 
whole  story. 

To  one  familiar  with  Christian  ideas,  the 


The  Idea  of  God. 

notion  that  Man  is  too  insignificant  a  crea¬ 
ture  to  be  worth  the  notice  of  Deity  seems 
at  once  pathetic  and  grotesque.  In  the 
view  of  Plato,  by  which  all  Christendom 
has  been  powerfully  influenced,  there  is 
profound  pathos.  The  wickedness  and 
misery  of  the  world  wrought  so  strongly 
upon  Plato’s  keen  sympathies  and  delicate 
moral  sense  that  he  came  to  conclusions 
almost  as  gloomy  as  those  of  the  Buddhist 
who  regards  existence  as  an  evil.  In  the 
Timaios  he  depicts  the  material  world  as 
essentially  vile ;  he  is  unable  to  think  of 
the  pure  and  holy  Deity  as  manifested 
in  it,  and  he  accordingly  separates  the 
Creator  from  his  creation  by  the  whole 
breadth  of  infinitude.  This  view  passed 
on  to  the  Gnostics,  for  whom  the  puzzling 
problem  of  philosophy  was  how  to  explain 
the  action  of  the  spiritual  God  upon  the 
material  universe.  ^Sometimes  the  inter¬ 
val  was  bridged*  by  mediating  aeons  or 
emanations  partly  spiritual  and  partly  ma¬ 
terial  ;  sometimes  the  world  was  held  to 


g4  The  Idea  of  God. 

be  the  work  of  the  devil,  and  in  no  sense 
divine.14  The  Greek  fathers  under  the 
lead  of  Clement,  espousing  the  higher  the¬ 
ism,  kept  clear  of  this  torrent  of  Gnostic 
thought  ;  but  upon  Augustine  it  fell  with 
full  force,  and  he  was  carried  away  with 
it.  In  his  earlier  writings  Augustine 
showed  himself  not  incapable  of  compre¬ 
hending  the  views  of  Clement  and  Atha¬ 
nasius  ;  but  his  intense  feeling  of  man’s 
wickedness  dragged  him  irresistibly  in 
the  opposite  direction.  In  his  doctrine 
of  original  sin,  he  represents  humanity  as 
cut  off  from  all  relationship  with  God,  who 
.  is  depicted  as  a  crudely  anthropomorphic 
Being  far  removed  from  the  universe  and 
accessible  only  through  the  mediating  of¬ 
fices  of  an  organized  church.  Compared 
with  the  thoughts  of  the  Greek  fathers 
this  was  a  barbaric  conception,  but  it  was 
suited  alike  to  the  lower  grade  of  culture 
in  western  Europe,  and  to  the  Latin  po¬ 
litical  genius,  which  in  the  decline  of  the 
Empire  was  already  occupying  itself  with 


The  Idea  of  God.  95 

its  great  and  beneficent  work  of  construct¬ 
ing  an  imperial  Church.  For  these  rea¬ 
sons  the  Augustinian  theology  prevailed, 
and  in  the  Dark  Ages  which  followed  it 
became  so  deeply  inwrought  into  the  in¬ 
nermost  fibres  of  Latin  Christianity  that 
it  remains  dominant  to-day  alike  in  Cath¬ 
olic  and  Protestant  churches.  With  few 
exceptions  every  child  born  of  Christian 
parents  in  western  Europe  or  in  America 
grows  up  with  an  idea  of  God  the  outlines 
of  which  were  engraven  upon  men’s  minds 
by  Augustine  fifteen  centuries  ago.  Nay, 
more,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that 
three  fourths  of  the  body  of  doctrine  cur¬ 
rently  known  as  Christianity,  unwarranted 
by  Scripture  and  never  dreamed  of  by 
Christ  or  his  apostles,  first  took  coherent 
shape  in  the  writings  of  this  mighty  Ro¬ 
man,  who  was  separated  from  the  apostolic 
age  by  an  interval  of  time  like  that  which 
separates  us  from  the  invention  of  print¬ 
ing  and  the  discovery  of  America.  The 
idea  of  God  upon  which  all  this  Augus- 


9<5  The  Idea  of  God. 

tinian  doctrine  is  based  is  the  idea  of  a 
Being  actuated  by  human  passions  and 
purposes,  localizable  in  space  and  utterly 
remote  from  that  inert  machine,  the  uni¬ 
verse  in  which  we  live,  and  upon  which 
He  acts  intermittently  through  the  sus¬ 
pension  of  what  are  called  natural  laws. 
So  deeply  has  this  conception  penetrated 
the  thought  of  Christendom  that  we  con¬ 
tinually  find  it  at  the  bottom  of  the  spec¬ 
ulations  and  arguments  of  men  who  would 
warmly  repudiate  it  as  thus  stated  in  its 
naked  outlines.  It  dominates  the  reason¬ 
ings  alike  of  believers  and  skeptics,  of 
theists  and  atheists  ;  it  underlies  at  once 
the  objections  raised  by  orthodoxy  against 
each  new  step  in  science  and  the  assaults 
made  by  materialism  upon  every  religious 
conception  of  the  world  ;  and  thus  it  is 
chiefly  responsible  for  that  complicated 
misunderstanding  which,  by  a  lamentable 
confusion  of  thought,  is  commonly  called 
“  the  conflict  between  religion  and  sci¬ 
ence.” 


VII. 

Conflict  between  the  Two  Ideas ,  commonly  mis¬ 
understood  as  a  Conflict  between  Religion 
and  Science. 

N  illustration  of  the  mischief  that 
has  been  wrought  by  the  August- 
inian  conception  of  Deity,  we  may 
cite  the  theological  objections  urged  against 
the  Newtonian  theory  of  gravitation  and 
the  Darwinian  theory  of  natural  selection. 
Leibnitz,  who  as  a  mathematician  but  little 
inferior  to  Newton  himself  might  have 
been  expected  to  be  easily  convinced  of  the 
truth  of  the  theory  of  gravitation,  was 
nevertheless  deterred  by  theological  scru¬ 
ples  from  accepting  it.  It  appeared  to  him 
that  it  substituted  the  action  of  physical 
forces  for  the  direct  action  of  the  Deity. 
Now  the  fallacy  of  this  argument  of  Leib¬ 
nitz  is  easy  to  detect.  It  lies  in  a  meta- 


p8  The  Idea  of  God. 

physical  misconception  of  the  meaning  of 
the  word  “  force.”  “Force”  is  implicitly 
regarded  as  a  sort  of  entity  or  daemon  which 
has  a  mode  of  action  distinguishable  from 
that  of  Deity ;  otherwise  it  is  meaningless 
to  speak  of  substituting  the  one  for  the 
other.  But  such  a  personification  of 
“force”  is  a  remnant  of  barbaric  thought, 
in  no  wise  sanctioned  by  physical  science. 
When  astronomy  speaks  of  two  planets  as 
attracting  each  other  with  a  “  force  ”  which 
varies  directly  as  their  masses  and  inversely 
as  the  squares  of  their  distances  apart,  it 
simply  uses  the  phrase  as  a  convenient 
metaphor  by  which  to  describe  the  manner 
in  which  the  observed  movements  of  the 
two  bodies  occur.  It  explains  that  in  pres¬ 
ence  of  each  other  the  two  bodies  are  ob¬ 
served  to  change  their  positions  in  a  cer¬ 
tain  specified  way,  and  this  is  all  that  it 
means.  This  is  all  that  a  strictly  scientific 
hypothesis  can  possibly  allege,  and  this  is 
all  that  observation  can  possibly  prove. 
Whatever  goes  beyond  this  and  imagines 


The  Idea  of  God.  99 

or  asserts  a  kind  of  “  pull  ”  between  the 
two  bodies,  is  not  science,  but  metaphysics. 
An  atheistic  metaphysics  may  imagine 
such  a  “  pull,”  and  may  interpret  it  as  the 
action  of  something  that  is  not  Deity,  but 
such  a  conclusion  can  find  no  support  in 
the  scientific  theorem,  which  is  simply  a 
generalized  description  of  phenomena.  The 
general  considerations  upon  which  the  be¬ 
lief  in  the  existence  and  direct  action  of 
Deity  is  otherwise  founded  are  in  no  wise 
disturbed  by  the  establishment  of  any  such 
scientific  theorem.  We  are  still  perfectly 
free  to  maintain  that  it  is  the  direct  action 
of  Deity  which  is  manifested  in  the  plan¬ 
etary  movements  ;  having  done  nothing 
more  with  our  Newtonian  hypothesis  than 
to  construct  a  happy  formula  for  express¬ 
ing  the  mode  or  order  of  the  manifestation. 
We  may  have  learned  something  new  con¬ 
cerning  the  manner  of  divine  action  ;  we 
certainly  have  not  “  substituted  ”  any  other 
kind  of  action  for  it.  And  what  is  thus 
obvious  in  this  simple  astronomical  example 


IOO 


The  Idea  of  God. 

is  equally  true  in  principle  in  every  case 
whatever  in  which  one  set  of  phenomena 
is  interpreted  by  reference  to  another  set. 
In  no  case  whatever  can  science  use  the 
words  “  force”  or  "  cause  ”  except  as  meta¬ 
phorically  descriptive  of  some  observed  or 
observable  sequence  of  phenomena.  And 
consequently  at  no  imaginable  future  time, 
so  long  as  the  essential  conditions  of  human 
thinking  are  maintained,  can  science  even 
attempt  to  substitute  the  action  of  any 
other  power  for  the  direct  action  of  Deity. 
The  theological  objection  urged  by  Leib¬ 
nitz  against  Newton  was  repeated  word  for 
word  by  Agassiz  in  his  comments  upon 
Darwin.  He  regarded  it  as  a  fatal  objec¬ 
tion  to  the  Darwinian  theory  that  it  ap¬ 
peared  to  substitute  the  action  of  physical 
forces  for  the  creative  action  of  Deity.  The 
fallacy  here  is  precisely  the  same  as  in 
Leibnitz’s  argument.  Mr.  Darwin  has 
convinced  us  that  the  existence  of  highly 
complicated  organisms  is  the  result  of  an 
infinitely  diversified  aggregate  of  circum- 


The  Idea  of  God.  ioi 

stances  so  minute  as  severally  to  seem 
trivial  or  accidental ;  yet  the  consistent 
theist  will  always  occupy  an  impregnable 
position  in  maintaining  that  the  entire 
series  in  each  and  every  one  of  its  incidents 
is  an  immediate  manifestation  of  the  crea¬ 
tive  action  of  God. 

In  this  connection  it  is  worth  while  to 
state  explicitly  what  is  the  true  province  of 
scientific  explanation.  Is  it  not  obvious 
that  since  a  philosophical  theism  must  re¬ 
gard  divine  power  as  the  immediate  source 
of  all  phenomena  alike,  therefore  science 
cannot  properly  explain  any  particular 
group  of  phenomena  by  a  direct  reference 
to  the  action  of  Deity  ?  Such  a  reference 
is  not  an  explanation,  since  it  adds  nothing 
to  our  previous  knowledge  either  of  the 
phenomena  or  of  the  manner  of  divine 
action.  The  business  of  science  is  simply 
to  ascertain  in  what  manner  phenomena 
coexist  with  each  other  or  follow  each 
other,  and  the  only  kind  of  explanation 
with  which  it  can  properly  deal  is  that 


102  The  Idea  of  God. 

which  refers  one  set  of  phenomena  to 
another  set.  In  pursuing  this,  its  legiti¬ 
mate  business,  science  does  not  touch  on 
the  province  of  theology  in  any  way,  and 
there  is  no  conceivable  occasion  for  any 
conflict  between  the  two.  From  this  and 
the  previous  considerations  taken  together 
it  follows  not  only  that  such  explanations 
as  are  contained  in  the  Newtonian  and 
Darwinian  theories  are  entirely  consistent 
with  theism,  but  also  that  they  are  the  only 
kind  of  explanations  with  which  science 
can  properly  concern  itself  at  all.  To  say 
that  complex  organisms  were  directly 
created  by  the  Deity  is  to  make  an  asser¬ 
tion  which,  however  true  in  a  theistic 
sense,  is  utterly  barren.  It  is  of  no  profit 
to  theism,  which  must  be  taken  for  granted 
before  the  assertion  can  be  made ;  and  it 
is  of  no  profit  to  science,  which  must  still 
ask  its  question,  “  How  ?  ”  15 

We  are  now  prepared  to  see  that  the  the¬ 
ological  objection  urged  against  the  New¬ 
tonian  and  Darwinian  theories  has  its  roots 


The  Idea  of  God.  103 

in  that  imperfect  kind  of  theism  which 
Augustine  did  so  much  to  fasten  upon  the 
western  world.  Obviously  if  Leibnitz  and 
Agassiz  had  been  educated  in  that  higher 
theism  shared  by  Clement  and  Athanasius 
in  ancient  times  with  Spinoza  and  Goethe 
in  later  days,  —  if  they  had  been  accus¬ 
tomed  to  conceive  of  God  as  immanent 
in  the  universe  and  eternally  creative, — 
then  the  argument  which  they  urged  with 
so  much  feeling  would  never  have  occurred 
to  them.  By  no  possibility  could  such  an 
argument  have  entered  their  minds.  To 
conceive  of  “physical  forces”  as  powers  of 
which  the  action  could  in  any  wise  be  “  sub¬ 
stituted”  for  the  action  of  Deity  would  in 
such  case  have  been  absolutely  impossible. 
Such  a  conception  involves  the  idea  of  God 
as  remote  from  the  world  and  acting  upon 
it  from  outside.  The  whole  notion  of  what 
theological  writers  are  fond  of  calling  “sec¬ 
ondary  causes  ”  involves  such  an  idea  of 
God.  The  higher  or  Athanasian  theism 
knows  nothing  of  secondary  causes  in  a 


W4  The  Idea  of  God. 

world  where  every  event  flows  directly 
from  the  eternal  First  Cause.  It  knows 
nothing  of  physical  forces  save  as  imme¬ 
diate  manifestations  of  the  omnipresent 
creative  power  of  God.  In  the  personifi¬ 
cation  of  physical  forces,  and  the  implied 
contrast  between  their  action  and  that  of 
Deity,  there  is  something  very  like  a  sur¬ 
vival  of  the  habits  of  thought  which  char¬ 
acterized  ancient  polytheism.  What  are 
these  personified  forces  but  little  gods  who 
are  supposed  to  be  invading  the  sacred 
domain  of  the  ruler  Zeus  ?  When  one 
speaks  of  substituting  the  action  of  Grav¬ 
itation  for  the  direct  action  of  Deity,  does 
there  not  hover  somewhere  in  the  dim 
background  of  the  conception  a  vague 
spectre  of  Gravitation  in  the  guise  of  a  re¬ 
bellious  Titan  ?  Doubtless  it  would  not  be 
easy  to  bring  any  one  to  acknowledge  such  a 
charge,  but  the  unseen  and  unacknowledged 
part  of  a  fallacy  is  just  that  which  is  most 
persistent  and  mischievous.  It  is  not  so 
many  generations,  after  all,  since  our  an- 


The  Idea  of  God.  105 

cestors  were  barbarians  and  polytheists  ; 
and  fragments  of  their  barbaric  thinking 
are  continually  intruding  unawares  into 
the  midst  of  our  lately-acquired  scientific 
culture.  In  most  philosophical  discussions 
a  great  deal  of  loose  phraseology  is  used,  in 
order  to  find  the  proper  connotations  of 
which  we  must  go  back  to  primitive  and 
untutored  ages.  Such  is  eminently  the 
case  with  the  phrases  in  which  the  forces 
of  nature  are  personified  and  described 
as  something  else  than  manifestations  of 
omnipresent  Deity. 

This  subject  is  of  such  immense  impor¬ 
tance  that  I  must  illustrate  it  from  yet 
another  point  of  view.  We  must  observe 
the  manner  in  which,  along  with  the  prog¬ 
ress  of  scientific  discovery,  theological  ar¬ 
guments  have  come  to  be  permeated  by 
the  strange  assumption  that  the  greater 
part  of  the  universe  is  godless.  Here  again 
we  must  go  back  for  a  moment  to  the 
primeval  world  and  observe  how  behind 
every  physical  phenomenon  there  were 


io6  The  Idea  of  God. 

supposed  to  be  quasi-human  passions  and 
a  quasi-human  will.  Now  the  phenomena 
which  were  first  arranged  and  systematized 
in  men’s  thoughts,  and  thus  made  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  something  like  scientific  generaliza¬ 
tion,  were  the  simplest,  the  most  accessible, 
and  the  most  manageable  phenomena  ;  and 
from  these  the  conception  of  a  quasi-human 
will  soonest  faded  away.  There  are  sav¬ 
ages  who  believe  that  hatchets  and  kettles 
have  souls,  but  men  unquestionably  out¬ 
grew  such  a  belief  as  this  long  before  they 
outgrew  the  belief  that  there  are  ghost-like 
deities  in  the  tempest,  or  in  the  sun  and 
moon.  After  many  ages  of  culture,  men 
ceased  to  regard  the  familiar  and  regularly- 
recurring  phenomena  of  nature  as  immedi¬ 
ate  results  of  volition,  and  reserved  this 
primeval  explanation  for  unusual  or  terrible 
phenomena,  such  as  comets  and  eclipses, 
or  famines  and  plagues.  As  the  result  of 
these  habits  of  thought,  in  course  of  time, 
Nature  seemed  to  be  divided  into  two  an¬ 
tithetical  provinces.  On  the  one  hand, 


The  Idea  of  God .  wy 

there  were  the  phenomena  that  occurred 
with  a  simple  regularity  which  seemed  to 
exclude  the  idea  of  capricious  volition  ;  and 
these  were  supposed  to  constitute  the  realm 
of  natural  law.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
were  the  complex  and  irregular  phenomena 
in  which  the  presence  of  law  could  not  so 
easily  be  detected  ;  and  these  were  sup¬ 
posed  to  constitute  the  realm  of  immediate 
divine  action.  This  antithesis  has  forever 
haunted  the  minds  of  men  imbued  with 
the  lower  or  Augustinian  theism  ;  and  such 
have  made  up  the  larger  part  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  world.  It  has  tended  to  make  the 
theologians  hostile  to  science  and  the  men 
of  science  hostile  to  theology.  For  as  sci¬ 
entific  generalization  has  steadily  extended 
the  region  of  natural  law,  the  region  which 
theology  has  assigned  to  divine  action  has 
steadily  diminished.  Every  discovery  in 
science  has  stripped  off  territory  from  the 
latter  province  and  added  it  to  the  former. 
Every  such  discovery  has  accordingly  been 
promulgated  and  established  in  the  teeth 


io8  The  Idea  of  God. 

of  bitter  and  violent  opposition  on  the  part 
of  theologians.  A  desperate  fight  it  has 
been  for  some  centuries,  in  which  science 
has  won  every  disputed  position,  while 
theology,  untaught  by  perennial  defeat, 
still  valiantly  defends  the  little  corner  that 
is  left  it.  Still  as  of  old  the  ordinary  the¬ 
ologian  rests  his  case  upon  the  assumption 
of  disorder,  caprice,  and  miraculous  inter¬ 
ference  with  the  course  of  nature.  He 
naively  asks,  “  If  plants  and  animals  have 
been  naturally  originated,  if  the  world  as  a 
whole  has  been  evolved  and  not  manufac¬ 
tured,  and  if  human  actions  conform  to 
law,  what  is  there  left  for  God  to  do  ?  If 
not  formally  repudiated,  is  he  not  thrust 
back  into  the  past  eternity,  as  an  ultimate 
source  of  things,  which  is  postulated  for 
form’s  sake,  but  might  as  well,  for  all 
practical  purposes,  be  omitted  ?  ”  16 

The  scientific  inquirer  may  reply  that 
the  difficulty  is  one  which  theology  has 
created  for  itself.  It  is  certainly  not  sci 
ence  that  has  relegated  the  creative  activ 


The  Idea  of  God.  iog 

ity-of  God  to  some  nameless  moment  in 
the  bygone  eternity  and  left  him  without 
occupation  in  the  present  world.  It  is  not 
science  that  is  responsible  for  the  mis¬ 
chievous  distinction  between  divine  action 
and  natural  law.  That  distinction  is  his¬ 
torically  derived  from  a  loose  habit  of 
philosophizing  characteristic  of  ignorant 
ages,  and  was  bequeathed  to  modern  times 
by  the  theology  of  the  Latin  church. 
Small  blame  to  the  atheist  who,  starting 
upon  such  a  basis,  thinks  he  can  interpret 
the  universe  without  the  idea  of  God  !  He 
is  but  doing  as  well  as  he  knows  how,  with 
the  materials  given  him.  One  has  only, 
however,  to  adopt  the  higher  theism  of 
Clement  and  Athanasius,  and  this  alleged 
antagonism  between  science  and  theology, 
by  which  so  many  hearts  have  been  sad¬ 
dened,  so  many  minds  darkened,  vanishes 
at  once  and  forever.  “  Once  really  adopt 
the  conception  of  an  ever-present  God, 
without  whom  not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the 
ground,  and  it  becomes  self-evident  that 
the  law  of  gravitation  is  but  an  expression 


no  The  Idea  of  God. 

of  a  particular  mode  of  divine  action.  And 
what  is  thus  true  of  one  law  is  true  of  all 
laws.”  17  The  thinker  in  whose  mind  divine 
action  is  thus  identified  with  orderly  action, 
and  to  whom  areally  irregular  phenomenon 
would  seem  like  a  manifestation  of  sheer 
diabolism,  foresees  in  every  possible  exten¬ 
sion  of  knowledge  a  fresh  confirmation  of 
his  faith  in  God.  From  his  point  of  view 
there  can  be  no  antagonism  between  our 
duty  as  inquirers  and  our  duty  as  wor¬ 
shippers.  To  him  no  part  of  the  universe 
is  godless.  In  the  swaying  to  and  fro  of 
molecules  and  the  ceaseless  pulsations  of 
ether,  in  the  secular  shiftings  of  planetary 
orbits,  in  the  busy  work  of  frost  and  rain¬ 
drop,  in  the  mysterious  sprouting  of  the 
seed,  in  the  everlasting  tale  of  death  and 
life  renewed,  in  the  dawning  of  the  babe’s 
intelligence,  in  the  varied  deeds  of  men 
from  age  to  age,  he  finds  that  which  awak¬ 
ens  the  soul  to  reverential  awe  ;  and  each 
act  of  scientific  explanation  but  reveals  an 
opening  through  which  shines  the  glory  of 
the  Eternal  Majesty. 


VIII. 


Anthropomorphic  Conceptions  of  God. 

ETWEEN  the  two  ideas  of  God 
which  we  have  exhibited  in  such 
striking  contrast,  there  is  never¬ 
theless  one  point  of  resemblance ;  and 
this  point  is  fundamental,  since  it  is  the 
point  in  virtue  of  which  both  are  entitled 
to  be  called  theistic  ideas.  In  both  there 
is  presumed  to  be  a  likeness  of  some  sort 
between  God  and  Man.  In  both  there  is 
an  element  of  anthropomorphism.  Even 
upon  this  their  common  ground,  however, 
there  is  a  wide  difference  between  the  two 
conceptions.  In  the  one  the  anthropo¬ 
morphic  element  is  gross,  in  the  other  it 
is  refined  and  subtle.  The  difference  is 
so  far-reaching  that  some  years  ago  I  pro¬ 
posed  to  mark  it  by  contrasting  these  two 
conceptions  of  God  as  Anthropomorphic 


1 12  The  Idea  of  God. 

Theism  and  Cosmic  Theism.  For  the 
doctrine  which  represents  God  as  imma¬ 
nent  in  the  universe  and  revealing  him¬ 
self  in  the  orderly  succession  of  events, 
the  name  Cosmic  Theism  is  eminently 
appropriate :  but  it  is  not  intended  by 
the  antithetic  nomenclature  to  convey  the 
impression  that  in  cosmic  theism  there 
is  nothing  anthropomorphic.18  A  theory 
which  should  regard  the  Human  Soul  as 
alien  and  isolated  in  the  universe,  with¬ 
out  any  links  uniting  it  with  the  eternal 
source  of  existence,  would  not  be  theism 
at  all.  It  would  be  Atheism,  which  on 
its  metaphysical  side  is  “the  denial  of 
anything  psychical  in  the  universe  out¬ 
side  of  human  consciousness.”  It  is  far 
enough  from  any  such  doctrine  to  the 
cosmic  theism  of  Clement  and  Origen,  of 
Spinoza  and  Lessing  and  Schleiermacher. 
The  difference,  however,  between  this  cos¬ 
mic  conception  of  God  and  the  anthropo¬ 
morphic  conception  held  by  Tertullian  and 
Augustine,  Calvin  and  Voltaire  and  Paley, 


The  Idea  of  God.  1 1  j 

is  sufficiently  great  to  be  described  as  a 
contrast.  The  explanation  of  the  differ¬ 
ence  must  be  sought  far  back  in  the  his¬ 
toric  genesis  of  the  two  conceptions.  Cos¬ 
mic  theism,  as  we  have  seen,  was  reached 
through  nature-worship  with  its  notion  of 
vast  elemental  spirits  indwelling  in  physi¬ 
cal  phenomena.  Anthropomorphic  theism 
is  descended  from  the  notion  of  tutelar 
deities  which  was  part  of  the  primitive  an¬ 
cestor-worship.  In  the  process  by  which 
men  attained  to  cosmic  theism,  physical 
generalization  was  the  chief  agency  at 
work ;  but  into  anthropomorphic  theism, 
as  we  have  seen,  there  entered  concep¬ 
tions  derived  from  men’s  political  think¬ 
ing.  For  such  a  people  as  the  Romans, 
who  could  deify  Imperator  Augustus  in 
just  the  same  way  that  the  Japanese  have 
deified  their  Mikado,  it  was  natural  and 
easy  to  conceive  of  God  as  a  monarch  en¬ 
throned  in  the  heavens  and  surrounded 
by  a  court  of  ministering  angels.  Such 
was  the  popular  conception  in  the  early 


1 14  The  Idea  of  God. 

ages  of  Christianity,  and  such  it  has 
doubtless  remained  with  the  mass  of  un¬ 
instructed  people  even  to  this  day.  The 
very  grotesqueness  of  the  idea,  as  it  ap¬ 
pears  to  the  mind  of  a  philosopher,  is  an 
index  of  the  ease  with  which  it  satisfies 
the  mind  of  an  uneducated  man.  Many 
persons,  no  doubt,  have  entertained  this 
idea  of  God  without  ever  giving  it  very 
definite  shape,  and  many  have  recognized 
it  as  in  great  measure  symbolic  :  yet  noth¬ 
ing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  un¬ 
told  thousands  have  conceived  it  in  its 
full  intensity  of  anthropomorphism.  Alike 
in  sermons  and  theological  treatises,  in 
stately  poetry  and  in  every-day  talk,  the 
Deity  has  been  depicted  as  pleased  or 
angry,  as  repenting  of  his  own  acts,  as 
soothed  by  adulation  and  quick  to  wreak 
vengeance  upon  silly  people  for  blasphe¬ 
mous  remarks.  In  those  curious  bills  of 
expenses  for  the  mediaeval  miracle-plays, 
along  with  charges  of  twopence  for  keep¬ 
ing  up  a  “fyre  at  hell  mouthe,”  we  find 


The  Idea  of  God.  115 

such  items  as  a  shilling  for  a  purple  coat 
for  God.  In  one  of  these  plays  an  angel 
who  has  just  witnessed  the  crucifixion 
comes  rushing  into  Heaven,  crying,  “Wake 
up,  almighty  Father !  Here  are  those 
beggarly  Jews  killing  your  son,  and  you 
asleep  here  like  a  drunkard  !  ”  “  Devil  take 
me  if  I  knew  anything  about  it!’'  is  the 
drowsy  reply.  Not  the  slightest  irrever¬ 
ence  was  intended  in  these  miracle-plays, 
which  were  the  only  dramatic  perform¬ 
ances  tolerated  by  the  mediaeval  church, 
for  the  sake  of  their  wholesome  educa¬ 
tional  influence  upon  the  common  people. 
In  the  light  of  such  facts,  one  sees  that 
the  representations  of  the  Deity  as  an  old 
man  of  august  presence,  with  flowing  hair 
and  beard,  by  the  early  modern  painters, 
must  have  meant  to  all  save  the  highest 
minds  much  more  than  a  mere  symbol. 
Until  one’s  thoughts  have  become  accus¬ 
tomed  to  range  far  and  wide  over  the 
universe  it  is  doubtless  impossible  to 
frame  a  conception  of  Deity  that  is  not 


/  /  6  The  Idea  of  God. 

grossly  anthropomorphic.  I  remember  dis¬ 
tinctly  the  conception  which  I  had  formed 
when  five  years  of  age.  I  imagined  a  nar¬ 
row  office  just  over  the  zenith,  with  a  tall 
standing-desk  running  lengthwise,  upon 
which  lay  several  open  ledgers  bound  in 
coarse  leather.  There  was  no  roof  over 
this  office,  and  the  walls  rose  scarcely  five 
feet  from  the  floor,  so  that  a  person  stand¬ 
ing  at  the  desk  could  look  out  upon  the 
whole  world.  There  were  two  persons  at 
the  desk,  and  one  of  them  —  a  tall,  slender 
man,  of  aquiline  features,  wearing  specta¬ 
cles,  with  a  pen  in  his  hand  and  another 
behind  his  ear  —  was  God.  The  other, 
whose  appearance  I  do  not  distinctly  re¬ 
call,  was  an  attendant  angel.  Both  were 
diligently  watching  the  deeds  of  men  and 
recording  them  in  the  ledgers.  To  my 
infant  mind  this  picture  was  not  grotesque, 
but  ineffably  solemn,  and  the  fact  that 
all  my  words  and  acts  were  thus  written 
down,  to  confront  me  at  the  day  of  judg¬ 
ment,  seemed  naturally  a  matter  of  grave 


concern. 


The  Idea  of  God.  i  iy 

If  we  could  cross-question  all  the  men 
and  women  we  know,  and  still  more  all 
the  children,  we  should  probably  find  that, 
even  in  this  enlightened  age,  the  concep¬ 
tions  of  Deity  current  throughout  the  civ¬ 
ilized  world  contain  much  that  is  in  the 
crudest  sense  anthropomorphic.  Such,  at 
any  rate,  seems  to  be  the  character  of  the 
conceptions  with  which  we  start  in  life. 
With  those  whose  studies  lead  them  to 
ponder  upon  the  subject  in  the  light  of 
enlarged  experience,  these  conceptions  be¬ 
come  greatly  modified.  They  lose  their 
anthropomorphic  definiteness,  they  grow 
vague  by  reason  of  their  expansion,  they 
become  recognized  as  largely  symbolic, 
but  they  never  quite  lose  all  traces  of 
their  primitive  form.  Indeed,  as  I  said  a 
moment  ago,  they  cannot  do  so.  The  ut¬ 
ter  demolition  of  anthropomorphism  would 
be  the  demolition  of  theism.  We  have 
now  to  see  what  traces  of  its  primitive 
form  the  idea  of  God  can  retain,  in  the 
light  of  our  modern  knowledge  of  the  uni¬ 


verse. 


IX. 

The  Argument  from  Design . 

HE  most  highly  refined  and  scien¬ 
tific  form  of  anthropomorphic  the¬ 
ism  is  that  which  we  are  accus¬ 
tomed  to  associate  with  Paley  and  the 
authors  of  the  Bridgewater  treatises.  It 
is  not  peculiar  to  Christianity,  since  it 
has  been  held  by  pagans  and  unbelievers 
as  firmly  as  by  the  devoutest  members  of 
the  church.  The  argument  from  design 
is  as  old  as  Sokrates,  and  was  relied  on 
by  Voltaire  and  the  English  deists  of  the 
eighteenth  century  no  less  than  by  Dr. 
Chalmers  and  Sir  Charles  Bell.  Upon  this 
theory  the  universe  is  supposed  to  have 
been  created  by  a  Being  possessed  of  intel¬ 
ligence  and  volition  essentially  similar  to 
the  intelligence  and  volition  of  Man.  This 
Being  is  actuated  by  a  desire  for  the  good 


The  Idea  of  God .  /  /  g 

of  his  creatures,  and  in  pursuance  thereof 
entertains  purposes  and  adapts  means  to 
ends  with  consummate  ingenuity.  The 
process  by  which  the  world  was  created 

4 

was  analogous  to  manufacture,  as  being 
the  work  of  an  intelligent  artist  operating 
upon  unintelligent  materials  objectively 
existing.  It  is  in  accordance  with  this 
theory  that  books  on  natural  theology,  as 
well  as  those  text-books  of  science  which 
deem  it  edifying  to  introduce  theological 
reflections  where  they  have  no  proper 
place,  are  fond  of  speaking  of  the  “  Divine 
Architect”  or  the  “ Great  Designer.” 

This  theory,  which  is  still  commonly 
held,  was  in  high  favour  during  the  earlier 
part  of  the  present  century.  In  view  of 
the  great  and  sudden  advances  which 
physical  knowledge  was  making,  it  seemed 
well  worth  while  to  consecrate  science  to 
the  service  of  theology ;  and  at  the  same 
time,  in  emphasizing  the  argument  from 
design,  theology  adopted  the  methods  of 
science.  The  attempt  to  discover  evi- 


120  The  Idea  of  God. 

dences  of  beneficent  purpose  in  the  struc¬ 
ture  of  the  eye  and  ear,  in  the  distribu¬ 
tion  of  plants  and  animals  over  the  earth’s 
surface,  in  the  shapes  of  the  planetary 
orbits  and  the  inclinations  of  their  axes, 
or  in  any  other  of  the  innumerable  ar¬ 
rangements  of  nature,  was  an  attempt  at 
true  induction  ;  and  high  praise  is  due  to 
the  able  men  who  have  devoted  their  ener¬ 
gies  to  reinforcing  the  argument.  By  far 
the  greater  part  of  the  evidence  was  natu¬ 
rally  drawn  from  the  organic  world,  which 
began  to  be  comprehensively  studied  in 
the  mutual  relations  of  all  its  parts  in  the 
time  of  Lamarck  and  Cuvier.  The  or¬ 
ganic  world  is  full  of  unspeakably  beauti¬ 
ful  and  wonderful  adaptations  between  or¬ 
ganisms  and  their  environments,  as  well 
as  between  the  various  parts  of  the  same 
organism.  The  unmistakable  end  of  these 
adaptations  is  the  welfare  of  the  animal 
or  plant ;  they  conduce  to  length  and  com¬ 
pleteness  of  life,  to  the  permanence  and 
prosperity  of  the  species.  For  some  time, 


The  Idea  of  God .  /  21 

therefore,  the  arguments  of  natural  the¬ 
ology  seemed  to  be  victorious  along  the 
whole  line.  The  same  kind  of  reasoning 
was  pushed  farther  and  farther  to  explain 
the  classification  and  morphology  of  plants 
and  animals ;  until  the  climax  was  reached 
in  Agassiz’s  remarkable  “  Essay  on  Classi¬ 
fication,”  published  in  1859,  ‘m  which  every 
organic  form  was  not  only  regarded  as  a 
concrete  thought  of  the  Creator  interpret¬ 
able  by  the  human  mind,  but  this  kind 
of  explanation  was  expressly  urged  as  a 
substitute  for  inquiries  into  the  physical 
causes  whereby  such  forms  might  have 
been  originated. 

In  its  best  days,  however,  there  was  a 
serious  weakness  in  the  argument  from 
design,  which  was  ably  pointed  out  by 
Mr.  Mill,  in  an  essay  wherein  he  accords 
much  more  weight  to  the  general  argu¬ 
ment  than  could  now  by  any  possibility 
be  granted  it.  Its  fault  was  the  familiar 
logical  weakness  of  proving  too  much. 
The  very  success  of  the  argument  in 


122  The  Idea  of  God. 

showing  the  world  to  have  been  the  work 
of  an  intelligent  Designer  made  it  impos¬ 
sible  to  suppose  that  Creator  to  be  at 
once  omnipotent  and  absolutely  benevo¬ 
lent.  For  nothing  can  be  clearer  than 
that  Nature  is  full  of  cruelty  and  mal- 
adaptation.  In  every  part  of  the  animal 
world  we  find  implements  of  torture  sur¬ 
passing  in  devilish  ingenuity  anything 
that  was  ever  seen  in  the  dungeons  of  the 
Inquisition.  We  are  introduced  to  a 
scene  of  incessant  and  universal  strife,  of 
which  it  is  not  apparent  on  the  surface 
that  the  outcome  is  the  good  or  the  hap¬ 
piness  of  anything  that  is  sentient.  In 
pre-Darwinian  times,  before  we  had  gone 
below  the  surface,  no  such  outcome  was 
discernible.  Often,  indeed,  we  find  the 
higher  life  wantonly  sacrificed  to  the  low 
er,  as  instanced  by  the  myriads  of  para¬ 
sites  apparently  created  for  no  other  pur¬ 
pose  than  to  prey  upon  creatures  better 
than  themselves.  Such  considerations 
bring  up,  with  renewed  emphasis,  the  ever- 


The  Idea  of  God.  123 

lasting  problem  of  the  origin  of  evil.  If 
the  Creator  of  such  a  world  is  omnipotent 
he  cannot  be  actuated  solely  by  a  desire 
for  the  welfare  of  his  creatures,  but  must 
have  other  ends  in  view  to  which  this  is 
in  some  measure  subordinated.  Or  if  he 
is  absolutely  benevolent,  then  he  cannot 
be  omnipotent,  but  there  is  something  in 
the  nature  of  things  which  sets  limits  to 
his  creative  power.  This  dilemma  is  as 
old  as  human  thinking,  and  it  still  remains 
a  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  any  the¬ 
ory  of  the  universe  that  can  possibly  be 
devised.  But  it  is  an  obstacle  especially 
formidable  to  any  kind  of  anthropomor¬ 
phic  theism.  For  the  only  avenue  of  es¬ 
cape  is  the  assumption  of  an  inscrutable 
mystery  ^which  would  contain  the  solution 
of  the  problem  if  the  human  intellect 
could  only  penetrate  so  far ;  and  the  more 
closely  we  invite  a  comparison  between 
divine  and  human  methods  of  working,  the 
more  do  we  close  up  that  only  outlet. 

The  practical  solution  oftenest  adopted 


124  The  Idea  of  God. 

has  been  that  which  sacrifices  the  Cre¬ 
ator’s  omnipotence  in  favour  of  his  benev¬ 
olence.  In  the  noblest  of  the  purely 
Aryan  religions  —  that  of  which  the  sa¬ 
cred  literature  is  contained  in  the  Zend- 
avesta  —  the  evil  spirit  Ahriman  exists 
independently  of  the  will  of  the  good 
Ormuzd,  and  is  accountable  for  all  the  sin 
in  the  world,  but  in  the  fulness  of  time 
he  is  to  be  bound  in  chains  and  shorn  of 
his  power  for  mischief.19  This  theory  has 
passed  into  Christendom  in  the  form  of 
Manichaeism ;  but  its  essential  features 
have  been  adopted  by  orthodox  Christi¬ 
anity,  which  at  the  same  time  has  tried  to 
grasp  the  other  horn  of  the  dilemma  and 
save  the  omnipotence  of  the  Deity  by  pay¬ 
ing  him  what  Mr.  Mill  calls  the  doubtful 
compliment  of  making  him  the  creator  of 
the  devil.  By  this  device  the  essential 
polytheism  of  the  conception  is  thinly 
veiled.  The  confusion  of  thought  has 
been  persistently  blinked  by  the  popular 
mind  ;  but  among  the  profoundest  think- 


The  Idea  of  God.  125 

ers  of  the  Aryan  race  there  have  been  two 
who  have  explicitly  adopted  the  solution 
which  limits  the  Creator’s  power.  One  of 
these  was  Plato,  who  held  that  God’s  per¬ 
fect  goodness  has  been  partially  thwarted 
by  the  intractableness  of  the  materials  he 
has  had  to  work  with.  This  theory  was 
carried  to  extremes  by  those  Gnostics  who 
believed  that  God’s  work  consisted  in  re¬ 
deeming  a  world  originally  created  by  the 
devil,  and  in  orthodox  Christianity  it  gave 
rise  to  the  Augustinian  doctrine  of  total 
depravity,  and  the  “philosophy  of  the  plan 
of  salvation  ”  founded  thereon.  The  other 
great  thinker  who  adopted  a  similar  solu¬ 
tion  was  Leibnitz.  In  his  famous  theory 
of  optimism  the  world  is  by  no  means 
represented  as  perfect ;  it  is  only  the  best 
of  all  possible  worlds,  the  best  the  Creator 
could  make  out  of  the  materials  at  hand. 
In  recent  times  Mr.  Mill  shows  a  marked 
preference  for  this  view,  and  one  of  the 
foremost  religious  teachers  now  living, 
Dr.  Martineau,  falls  into  a  parallel  line 


126  The  Idea  of  God . 

of  thinking  in  his  suggestion  that  the 
primary  qualities  of  matter  constitute  a 
“  datum  objective  to  God,”  who,  “in  shap¬ 
ing  the  orbits  out  of  immensity,  and  de¬ 
termining  seasons  out  of  eternity,  could 
but  follow  the  laws  of  curvature,  measure, 
and  proportion.”  20 

But  indeed  it  is  not  necessary  to  refer 
to  the  problem  of  evil  in  order  to  show 
that  the  argument  from  design  cannot 
prove  the  existence  of  an  omnipotent  and 
benevolent  Designer.  It  is  not  omnipo¬ 
tence  that  contrives  and  plans  and  adapts 
means  to  ends.  These  are  the  methods 
of  finite  intelligence ;  they  imply  the  over¬ 
coming  of  obstacles  ;  and  to  ascribe  them 
to  omnipotence  is  to  combine  words  that 
severally  possess  meanings  into  a  phrase 
that  has  no  meaning.  “God  said,  Let 
there  be  light:  and  there  was  light.”  In 
this  noble  description  of  creative  omnipo¬ 
tence  one  would  search  in  vain  for  any 
hint  of  contrivance.  The  most  the  argu¬ 
ment  from  design  could  legitimately  hope 


The  Idea  of  God.  i2j 

to  accomplish  was  to  make  it  seem  prob¬ 
able  that  the  universe  was  wrought  into 
its  present  shape  by  an  intelligent  and  be¬ 
nevolent  Being  immeasurably  superior  to 
Man,  but  far  from  infinite  in  power  and 
resources.  Such  an  argument  hardly  rises 
to  the  level  of  true  theism.21 


t 


X. 

Simile  of  the  Watch  replaced  by  Simile  of 

the  Flower. 

T  was  in  its  own  chosen  strong¬ 
hold  that  this  once  famous  argu¬ 
ment  was  destined  to  meet  its 
doom.  It  was  in  the  adaptations  of  the 
organic  world,  in  the  manifold  harmonies 
between  living  creatures  and  surrounding 
circumstances,  that  it  had  seemed  to  find 
its  chief  support ;  and  now  came  the  Dar¬ 
winian  theory  of  natural  selection,  and  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye  knocked  all  this 
support  from  under  it.  It  is  not  that  the 
organism  and  its  environment  have  been 
adapted  to  each  other  by  an  exercise  of 
creative  intelligence,  but  it  is  that  the 
organism  is  necessarily  fitted  to  the  en¬ 
vironment  because  in  the  perennial  slaugh¬ 
ter  that  has  gone  on  from  the  beginning 


The  Idea  of  God .  129 

only  the  fittest  have  survived.  Or,  as 
it  has  been  otherwise  expressed,  “  the 
earth  is  suited  to  its  inhabitants  because 
it  has  produced  them,  and  only  such 
as  suit  it  live/’  In  the  struggle  for  ex¬ 
istence  no  individual  peculiarity,  however 
slight,  that  tends  to  the  preservation  of 
life  is  neglected.  It  is  unerringly  seized 
upon  and  propagated  by  natural  selection, 
and  from  the  cumulative  action  of  such 
slight  causes  have  come  the  beautiful 
adaptations  of  which  the  organic  world  is 
full.  The  demonstration  of  this  point, 
through  the  labours  of  a  whole  generation 
of  naturalists,  has  been  one  of  the  most 

r 

notable  achievements  of  modern  science, 
and  to  the  theistic  arguments  of  Paley 
and  the  Bridgewater  treatises  it  has  dealt 
destruction. 

But  the  Darwinian  theory  of  natural  se¬ 
lection  does  not  stand  alone.  It  is  part 
of  a  greater  whole.  It  is  the  most  con¬ 
spicuous  portion  of  that  doctrine  of  evo¬ 
lution  in  which  all  the  results  hitherto 


9 


rjo  The  Idea  of  God. 

attained  by  the  great  modern  scientific 
movement  are  codified,  and  which  Herbert 
Spencer  had  already  begun  to  set  forth 
in  its  main  outlines  before  the  Darwinian 
theory  had  been  made  known  to  the  world. 
This  doctrine  of  evolution  so  far  extends 
the  range  of  our  vision  through  past  and 
future  time  as  entirely  to  alter  our  con¬ 
ception  of  the  universe.  Our  grandfa¬ 
thers,  in  common  with  all  preceding  gen¬ 
erations  of  men,  could  and  did  suppose 
that  at  some  particular  moment  in  the 
past  eternity  the  world  was  created  in  very 
much  the  shape  which  it  has  at  present. 
But  our  modern  knowledge  does  not  allow 
us  to  suppose  anything  of  the  sort.  We 
can  carry  back  our  thoughts  through  a 
long  succession  of  great  epochs,  some  of 
them  many  millions  of  years  in  duration, 
in  each  of  which  the  innumerable  forms 
of  life  that  covered  the  earth  were  very 
different  from  what  they  were  in  all  the 
others,  and  in  even  the  nearest  of  which 
they  were  notably  different  from  what 


The  Idea  of  God.  1 31 

they  are  now.  We  can  go  back  still  far¬ 
ther  to  the  eras  when  the  earth  was  a 
whirling  ball  of  vapour,  or  when  it  formed 
an  equatorial  belt  upon  a  sun  two  hundred 
million  miles  in  diameter,  or  when  the 
sun  itself  was  but  a  giant  nebula  from 
which  as  yet  no  planet  had  been  born. 
And  through  all  the  vast  sweep  of  time, 
from  the  simple  primeval  vapour  down  to 
the  multifarious  world  we  know  to-day,  we 
see  the  various  forms  of  Nature  coming 
into  existence  one  after  the  other  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  laws  of  which  we  are  al¬ 
ready  beginning  to  trace  the  character  and 
scope.  Paley’s  simile  of  the  watch  is  no 
longer  applicable  to  such  a  world  as  this. 
It  must  be  replaced  by  the  simile  of  the 
flower.  The  universe  is  not  a  machine, 
but  an  organism,  with  an  indwelling  prin¬ 
ciple  of  life.  It  was  not  made,  but  it  has 
grown. 

That  such  a  change  in  our  conception 
of  the  universe  marks  the  greatest  revo¬ 
lution  that  has  ever  taken  place  in  human 


/  The  Idea  of  God . 

thinking  need  scarcely  be  said.  But  even 
in  this  statement  we  have  not  quite  re¬ 
vealed  the  depth  of  the  change.  Not  only 
has  modern  science  made  it  clear  that  the 
varied  forms  of  Nature  which  make  up  the 
universe  have  arisen  through  a  process  of 
evolution,  but  it  has  also  made  it  clear 
that  what  we  call  the  laws  of  Nature  have 
been  evolved  through  the  self-same  pro¬ 
cess.  The  axiom  of  the  persistence  of 
force,  upon  which  all  modern  science  has 
come  to  rest,  involves  as  a  necessary  cor¬ 
ollary  the  persistence  of  the  relations  be¬ 
tween  forces  ;  so  that,  starting  with  the 
persistence  of  force  and  the  primary  qual¬ 
ities  of  matter,  it  can  be  shown  that  all 
those  uniformities  of  coexistence  and  suc¬ 
cession  which  we  call  natural  laws  have 
arisen  one  after  the  other  in  connection 
with  the  forms  which  have  afforded  the 
occasions  for  their  manifestation.  The 
all-pervading  harmony  of  Nature  is  thus 
itself  a  natural  product,  and  the  last  inch 


The  Idea  of  God. 


'33 


of  ground  is  cut  away  from  under  the  the¬ 
ologians  who  suppose  the  universe  to  have 
come  into  existence  through  a  supernat¬ 
ural  process  of  manufacture  at  the  hands 
of  a  Creator  outside  of  itself. 


XI. 

The  Craving  for  a  Final  Cause . 

T  appears,  then,  that  the  idea  of 
God  as  remote  from  the  world  is 
not  likely  to  survive  the  revolu¬ 
tion  in  thought  which  the  rapid  increase 
of  modern  knowledge  has  inaugurated. 
The  knell  of  anthropomorphic  or  Augus- 
tinian  theism  has  already  sounded.  This 
conclusion  need  not,  however,  disturb  us 
when  we  consider  how  imperfect  a  form 
of  theism  this  is  which  mankind  is  now 
outgrowing.  To  get  rid  of  the  appearance 
of  antagonism  between  science  and  relig¬ 
ion  will  of  itself  be  one  of  the  greatest 
benefits  ever  conferred  upon  the  human 
race.  It  will  forward  science  and  purify 
religion,  and  it  will  go  *  far  toward  in¬ 
creasing  kindness  and  mutual  helpfulness 
among  men.  Since  such  happy  results 


The  Idea  of  God .  133 

are  likely  to  follow  the  general  adoption 
of  the  cosmic  or  Athanasian  form  of  the¬ 
ism,  in  place  of  the  other  form,  it  becomes 
us  to  observe  more  specifically  the  manner 
in  which  this  higher  theism  stands  related 
to  our  modern  knowledge. 

To  every  form  of  theism,  as  I  have  al¬ 
ready  urged,  an  anthropomorphic  element 
is  indispensable.  It  is  quite  true,  on  the 
one  hand,  that  to  ascribe  what  we  know 
as  human  personality  to  the  infinite  Deity 
straightway  lands  us  in  a  contradiction, 
since  personality  without  limits  is  incon¬ 
ceivable.  But  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  no 
less  true  that  the  total  elimination  of  an¬ 
thropomorphism  from  the  idea  of  God 
abolishes  the  idea  itself.  This  difficulty 
need  not  dishearten  us,  for  it  is  no  more 
than  we  must  expect  to  encounter  on  the 
threshold  of  such  a  problem  as  the  one 
before  us.  We  do  not  approach  the  ques¬ 
tion  in  the  spirit  of  those  natural  theolo¬ 
gians  who  were  so  ready  with  their  expla¬ 
nations  of  the  divine  purposes.  We  are 


136  The  Idea  of  God. 

aware  that  “  we  see  as  through  a  glass 
darkly,”  and  we  do  not  expect  to  “think 
God’s  thoughts  after  him”  save  in  the 
crudest  symbolic  fashion.  In  dealing  with 
the  Infinite  we  are  confessedly  treating  of 
that  which  transcends  our  powers  of  con¬ 
ception.  Our  ability  to  frame  ideas  is 
strictly  limited  by  experience,  and  our  ex¬ 
perience  does  not  furnish  the  materials  for 
the  idea  of  a  personality  which  is  not  nar¬ 
rowly  hemmed  in  by  the  inexorable  bar¬ 
riers  of  circumstance.  We  therefore  can¬ 
not  conceive  such  an  idea.  But  it  does 
not  follow  that  there  is  no  reality  answer¬ 
ing  to  what  such  an  idea  would  be  if  it 
could  be  conceived.  The  test  of  incon¬ 
ceivability  is  only  applicable  to  the  world 
of  phenomena  from  which  our  experience 
is  gathered.  It  fails  when  applied  to  that 
which  lies  behind  phenomena.  I  do  not 
hold  for  this  reason  that  we  are  justified 
in  using  such  an  expression  as  “  infinite 
personality”  in  a  philosophical  inquiry 
where  clearness  of  thought  and  speech  is 


The  Idea  of  God.  /  ^7 

above  all  things  desirable.  But  I  do  hold, 
most  emphatically,  that  we  are  not  de¬ 
barred  from  ascribing  a  quasi-psychical  na¬ 
ture  to  the  Deity  simply  because  we  can 
frame  no  proper  conception  of  such  a  na¬ 
ture  as  absolute  and  infinite. 

The  point  is  of  vital  importance  to  the¬ 
ism.  As  Kant  has  well  said,  “the  concep¬ 
tion  of  God  involves  not  merely  a  blindly 
operating  Nature  as  the  eternal  root  of 
things,  but  a  Supreme  Being  that  shall  be 
the  author  of  all  things  by  free  and  under¬ 
standing  action  ;  and  it  is  this  conception 
which  alone  has  any  interest  for  us.”  It 
will  be  observed  that  Kant  says  nothing 
here  about  “contrivance.”  By  the  phrase 
“free  and  understanding  action”  he  doubt¬ 
less  means  much  the  same  that  is  here 
meant  by  ascribing  to  God  a  quasi-psy¬ 
chical  nature.  And  thus  alone,  he  says, 
can  we  feel  any  interest  in  theism.  The 
thought  goes  deep,  yet  is  plain  enough  to 
every  one.  The  teleological  instinct  in 
Man  cannot  be  suppressed  or  ignored. 


/  j8  The  Idea  of  God. 

The  human  soul  shrinks  from  the  thought 
that  it  is  without  kith  or  kin  in  all  this 
wide  universe.  Our  reason  demands  that 
there  shall  be  a  reasonableness  in  the  con¬ 
stitution  of  things.  This  demand  is  a  fact 
in  our  psychical  nature  as  positive  and  ir¬ 
repressible  as  our  acceptance  of  geometri¬ 
cal  axioms  and  our  rejection  of  whatever 
controverts  such  axioms.  No  ingenuity  of 
argument  can  bring  us  to  believe  that  the 
infinite  Sustainer  of  the  universe  will  “put 
us  to  permanent  intellectual  confusion.” 
There  is  in  every  earnest  thinker  a  crav¬ 
ing  after  a  final  cause  ;  and  this  craving 
can  no  more  be  extinguished  than  our 
belief  in  objective  reality.  Nothing  can 
persuade  us‘  that  the  universe  is  a  farrago 
of  nonsense.  Our  belief  in  what  we  call 
the  evidence  of  our  senses  is  less  strong 
than  our  faith  that  in  the  orderly  sequence 
of  events  there  is  a  meaning  which  our 
minds  could  fathom  were  they  only  vast 
enough.  Doubtless  in  our  own  age,  of 
which  it  is  a  most  healthful  symptom 
that  it  questions  everything,  there  are 


The  Idea  of  God.  1 39 

many  who,  through  inability  to  assign  the 
grounds  for  such  a  faith,  have  persuaded 
themselves  that  it  must  be  a  mere  super¬ 
stition  which  ought  not  to  be  cherished  ; 
but  it  is  not  likely  that  any  one  of  these 
has  ever  really  succeeded  in  ridding  him¬ 
self  of  it. 

According  to  Mr.  Spencer,  the  only  ulti¬ 
mate  test  of  reality  is  persistence,  and  the 
only  measure  of  validity  among  our  pri¬ 
mary  beliefs  is  the  success  with  which 
they  resist  all  efforts  to  change  them.  Let 
us  see,  then,  how  it  is  with  the  belief  in 
the  essential  reasonableness  of  the  uni¬ 
verse.  Does  this  belief  answer  to  any  out¬ 
ward  reality  ?  Is  there,  in  the  scheme  of 
things,  aught  that  justifies  Man  in  claim¬ 
ing  kinship  of  any  sort  with  the  God  that 
is  immanent  in  the  world  ? 

The  difficulty  in  answering  such  ques¬ 
tions  has  its  root  in  the  impossibility  of 
framing  a  representative  conception  of 
Deity ;  but  it  is  a  difficulty  which  may,  for 
all  practical  purposes,  be  surmounted  by 
the  aid  of  a  symbolic  conception. 


XII. 

Symbolic  Conceptions . 

BSERVE  the  meaning  of  this  dis¬ 
tinction.  Of  any  simple  object 
which  can  be  grasped  in  a  single 
act  of  perception,  such  as  a  knife  or  a 
book,  an  egg  or  an  orange,  a  circle  or  a 
triangle,  you  can  frame  a  conception  which 
almost  or  quite  exactly  represents  the  ob¬ 
ject.  The  picture  or  visual  image  in  your 

9 

mind  when  the  orange  is  present  to  the 
senses  is  almost  exactly  reproduced  when 
it  is  absent.  The  distinction  between  the 
two  lies  chiefly  in  the  relative  vividness 
of  the  former  as  contrasted  with  the  rela¬ 
tive  faintness  of  the  latter.  But  as  the 
objects  of  thought  increase  in  size  and  in 
complexity  of  detail,  the  case  soon  comes 
to  be  very  different.  You  cannot  frame 
a  truly  representative  conception  of  the 


The  Idea  of  God.  1 41 

town  in  which  you  live,  however  familiar 
you  may  be  with  its  streets  and  houses, 
its  parks  and  trees,  and  the  looks  and  de¬ 
meanour  of  the  townsmen  ;  it  is  impossi¬ 
ble  to  embrace  so  many  details  in  a  single 
mental  picture.  The  mind  must  range  to 
and  fro  among  the  phenomena  in  order 
to  represent  the  town  in  a  series  of  con¬ 
ceptions.  But  practically  what  you  have 
in  mind  when  you  speak  of  the  town  is 
a  fragmentary  conception  in  which  some 
portion  of  the  object  is  represented,  while 
you  are  well  aware  that  with  sufficient 
pains  a  series  of  mental  pictures  could  be 
formed  which  would  approximately  corre¬ 
spond  to  the  object.  That  is  to  say,  this 
fragmentary  conception  stands  in  your 
mind  as  a  symbol  of  the  town.  To  some 
extent  the  conception  is  representative, 
but  to  a  great  degree  it  is  symbolic.  With 
a  further  increase  in  the  size  and  complex¬ 
ity  of  the  objects  of  thought,  our  concep¬ 
tions  gradually  lose  their  representative 
character,  and  at  length  become  purely 


142  The  Idea  of  God. 

symbolic.  No  one  can  form  a  mental 
picture  that  answers  even  approximately 
to  the  earth.  Even  a  homogeneous  ball 
eight  thousand  miles  in  diameter  is  too 
vast  an  object  to  be  conceived  otherwise 
than  symbolically,  and  much  more  is  this 
true  of  the  ball  upon  which  we  live,  with 
all  its  endless  multiformity  of  detail.  We 
imagine  a  globe  and  clothe  it  with  a  few 
terrestrial  attributes,  and  in  our  minds 
this  fragmentary  notion  does  duty  as  a 
symbol  of  the  earth. 

The  case  becomes  still  more  striking 
when  we  have  to  deal  with  conceptions  of 
the  universe,  of  cosmic  forces  such  as  light 
and  heat,  or  of  the  stupendous  secular 
changes  which  modern  science  calls  us  to 
contemplate.  Here  our  conceptions  can¬ 
not  even  pretend  to  represent  the  objects; 
they  are  as  purely  symbolic  as  the  alge¬ 
braic  equations  whereby  the  geometer  ex¬ 
presses  the  shapes  of  curves.  Yet  so  long 
as  there  are  means  of  verification  at  our 
command,  we  can  reason  as  safely  with 


The  Idea  of  God.  143 

these  symbolic  conceptions  as  if  they  were 
truly  representative.  The  geometer  can 
at  any  moment  translate  his  equation  into 
'an  actual  curve,  and  thereby  test  the  re¬ 
sults  of  his  reasoning ;  and  the  case  is 
similar  with  the  undulatory  theory  of  light, 
the  chemist’s  conception  of  atomicity,  and 
other  vast  stretches  of  thought  which  in 
recent  times  have  revolutionized  our  knowl¬ 
edge  of  Nature.  The  danger  in  the  use 
of  symbolic  conceptions  is  the  danger  of 
framing  illegitimate  symbols  that  answer 
to  nothing  in  heaven  or  earth,  as  has  hap¬ 
pened  first  and  last  with  so  many  short¬ 
lived  theories  in  science  and  in  meta¬ 
physics.  Forewarned  of  this  danger,  and 
therefore  —  I  hope — forearmed  against  it, 
let  us  see  what  a  scientific  philosophy  has 
to  say  about  the  Power  that  is  manifested 
in  and  through  the  universe. 


The  Eternal  Source  of  Phenomena . 

E  have  seen  that  before  men  could 
arrive  at  the  idea  of  God,  before 
out  of  the  old  crude  and  fragmen¬ 
tary  polytheisms  there  could  be  developed 
a  pure  and  coherent  theism,  it  was  neces¬ 
sary  that  physical  generalization  should 
have  advanced  far  enough  to  enable  them, 
however  imperfectly,  to  reason  about  the 
universe  as  a  whole.  It  was  a  faint 
glimpse  of  the  unity  of  Nature  that  first 
led  men  to  the  conception  of  the  unity  of 
God,  and  as  their  knowledge  of  the  phe¬ 
nomenal  fact  becomes  clearer,  so  must 
their  grasp  upon  the  noumenal  truth  be¬ 
hind  it  become  firmer.  Now  the  whole 
tendency  of  modern  science  is  to  impress 
upon  us  ever  more  forcibly  the  truth  that 
the  entire  knowable  universe  is  an  im- 


The  Idea  of  God,  145 

mense  unit,  animated  throughout  all  its 
parts  by  a  single  principle  of  life.  This 
conclusion,  which  was  long  ago  borne  in 
upon  the  minds  of  prophetic  thinkers,  like 
Spinoza  and  Goethe,  through  their  keen 
appreciation  of  the  significance  of  the 
physical  harmonies  known  to  them,  has 
during  the  last  fifty  years  received  some¬ 
thing  like  a  demonstration  in  detail.  It 
is  since  Goethe’s  death,  for  example,  that 
it  has  been  proved  that  the  Newtonian 
Maw  of  gravitation  extends  to  the  bodies 
which  used  to  be  called  fixed  stars.  That 
such  was  the  case  was  already  much  more 
than  probable,  but  so  lately  as  1835  there 
were  to  be  found  writers  on  science,  such 
as  Comte,  who  denied  that  it  could  ever 
be  proved.  But  a  still  more  impressive 
illustration  of  the  unity  of  Nature  is  fur¬ 
nished  by  the  luminiferous  ether,  when 
considered  in  connection  with  the  discov¬ 
ery  of  the  correlation  of  forces.  The  fath¬ 
omless  abysses  of  space  can  no  longer  be 
talked  of  as  empty ;  they  are  filled  with 


10 


146  The  Idea  of  God . 

a  wonderful  substance,  unlike  any  of  the 
forms  of  matter  which  we  can  weigh  and 
measure.  A  cosmic  jelly  almost  infinitely 
hard  and  elastic,  it  offers  at  the  same  time 
no  appreciable  resistance  to  the  move¬ 
ments  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  It  is  so 
sensitive  that  a  shock  in  any  part  of  it 
causes  a  “tremour  which  is  felt  on  the 
surface  of  countless  worlds.”  Radiating 
in  every  direction,  from  millions  of  centric 
points,  run  shivers  of  undulation  mani¬ 
fested  in  endless  metamorphosis  as  heat, 
or  light,  or  actinism,  as  magnetism  or  elec¬ 
tricity.  Crossing  one  another  in  every  im¬ 
aginable  way,  as  if  all  space  were  crowded 
with  a  mesh-work  of  nerve-threads,  these 
motions  go  on  forever  in  a  harmony  that 
nothing  disturbs.  Thus  every  part  of  the 
universe  shares  in  the  life  of  all  the  other 
parts,  as  when  in  the  solar  atmosphere, 
pulsating  at  its  temperature  of  a  million 
degrees  Fahrenheit,  a  slight  breeze  in¬ 
stantly  sways  the  needles  in  every  com¬ 
pass-box  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 


The  Idea  of  God.  147 

Still  further  striking  confirmation  is 
found  in  the  marvellous  disclosures  of 
spectrum  analysis.  To  whatever  part  of 
the  heavens  we  turn  the  telescope,  armed 
with  this  new  addition  to  our  senses,  we 
find  the  same  chemical  elements  with 
which  the  present  century  has  made  us 
familiar  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth. 
From  the  distant  worlds  of  Arcturus  and 
the  Pleiades,  whence  the  swift  ray  of  light 
takes  many  years  to  reach  us,  it  brings 
the  story  of  the  hydrogen  and  oxygen,  the 
vapour  of  iron  or  sodium,  which  set  it  in 
motion.  Thus  in  all  parts  of  the  universe 
that  have  fallen  within  our  ken  we  find 
a  unity  of  chemical  composition.  Nebulae, 
stars,  and  planets  are  all  made  of  the  same 
materials,  and  on  every  side  we  behold 
them  in  different  stages  of  development, 
worlds  in  the  making :  here  an  irregular 
nebula  such  as  our  solar  system  once  was, 
there  a  nebula  whose  rotation  has  at 
length  wrought  it  into  spheroidal  form ; 
here  and  there  stars  of  varied  colours  mark- 


148  The  Idea  of  God. 

ing  different  eras  in  chemical  evolution ; 
now  planets  still  partly  incandescent  like 
Saturn  and  Jupiter,  then  planets  like  Mars 
and  the  earth,  with  cool  atmospheres  and 
solid  continents  and  vast  oceans  of  water; 
and  lastly  such  bodies  as  the  moon,  va¬ 
pourless,  rigid,  and  cold  in  death. 

Still  nearer  do  we  come  toward  real¬ 
izing  the  unity  of  Nature  when  we  recol¬ 
lect  that  the  law  of  evolution  is  not  only 
the  same  for  all  these  various  worlds,  but 
is  also  the  same  throughout  all  other  or¬ 
ders  of  phenomena.  Not  only  in  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  cosmical  bodies,  including 
the  earth,  but  also  in  the  development  of 
life  upon  the  earth’s  surface  and  in  the 
special  development  of  those  complex  man¬ 
ifestations  of  life  known  as  human  socie¬ 
ties,  the  most  general  and  fundamental 
features  of  the  process  are  the  same,  so 
that  it  has  been  found  possible  to  express 
them  in  a  single  universal  formula.  And 
what  is  most  striking  of  all,  this  notable 
formula,  under  which  Herbert  Spencer 


The  Idea  of  God.  149 

has  succeeded  in  generalizing  the  phe¬ 
nomena  of  universal  evolution,  was  derived 
from  the  formula  under  which  Von  Baer 
in  1829  first  generalized  the  mode  of  de¬ 
velopment  of  organisms  from  their  em¬ 
bryos.  That  a  law  of  evolution  first  par¬ 
tially  detected  among  the  phenomena  of 
the  organic  world  should  thereafter  not 
only  be  found  applicable  to  all  other  orders 
of  phenomena,  but  should  find  in  this  ap¬ 
plication  its  first  complete  and  coherent 
statement,  is  a  fact  of  wondrous  and  start¬ 
ling  significance.  It  means  that  the  uni¬ 
verse  as  a  whole  is  thrilling  in  every  fibre 
with  Life,  —  not,  indeed,  life  in  the  usual 
restricted  sense,  but  life  in  a  general 
sense.  The  distinction,  once  deemed  ab¬ 
solute,  between  the  living  and  the  not- 
living  is  converted  into  a  relative  distinc¬ 
tion  ;  and  Life  as  manifested  in  the  organ¬ 
ism  is  seen  to  be  only  a  specialized  form 
of  the  Universal  Life. 

The  conception  of  matter  as  dead  or  in¬ 
ert  belongs,  indeed,  to  an  order  of  thought 


150  The  Idea  of  God. 

that  modern  knowledge  has  entirely  out¬ 
grown.  If  the  study  of  physics  has  taught 
us  anything,  it  is  that  nowhere  in  Nature 
is  inertness  or  quiescence  to  be  found. 
All  is  quivering  with  energy.  From  par¬ 
ticle  to  particle  without  cessation  the 
movement  passes  on,  reappearing  from 
moment  to  moment  under  myriad  Protean 
forms,  while  the  rearrangements  of  parti¬ 
cles  incidental  to  the  movement  constitute 
the  qualitative  differences  among  things. 
Now  in  the  language  of  physics  all  mo¬ 
tions  of  matter  are  manifestations  of 
force,  to  which  we  can  assign  neither  be¬ 
ginning  nor  end.  Matter  is  indestructible, 
motion  is  continuous,  and  beneath  both 
these  universal  truths  lies  the  fundamental 
truth  that  force  is  persistent.  The  far¬ 
thest  reach  in  science  that  has  ever  been 
made  was  made  when  it  was  proved  by 
Herbert  Spencer  that  the  law  of  universal 
evolution  is  a  necessary  consequence  of 
the  persistence  of  force.  It  has  shown  us 
that  all  the  myriad  phenomena  of  the  uni- 


Tie  Idea  of  God.  151 

verse,  all  its  weird  and  subtle  changes,  in 
all  their  minuteness  from  moment  to  mo¬ 
ment,  in  all  their  vastness  from  age  to 
age,  are  the  manifestations  of  a  single  ani¬ 
mating  principle  that  is  both  infinite  and 
eternal. 

By  what  name,  then,  shall  we  call  this 
animating  principle  of  the  universe,  this 
eternal  source  of  phenomena  ?  Using  the 
ordinary  language  of  physics,  we  have  just 
been  calling  it  Force,  but  such  a  term  in  no 
wise  enlightens  us.  Taken  by  itself  it  is 
meaningless  ;  it  acquires  its  meaning  only 
from  the  relations  in  which  it  is  used.  It 
is  a  mere  symbol,  like  the  algebraic  ex¬ 
pression  which  stands  for  a  curve.  Of 
what,  then,  is  it  the  symbol  ? 

The  words  which  we  use  are  so  en¬ 
wrapped  in  atmospheres  of  subtle  associa¬ 
tions  that  they  are  liable  to  sway  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  our  thoughts  in  ways  of  which  we 
are  often  unconscious.  It  is  highly  de¬ 
sirable  that  physics  should  have  a  word 
as  thoroughly  abstract,  as  utterly  emptied 


/  52  The  Idea  of  God. 

of  all  connotations  of  personality,  as  pos¬ 
sible,  so  that  it  may  be  used  like  a  math¬ 
ematical  symbol.  Such  a  word  is  Force. 
But  what  we  are  now  dealing  with  is  by 
no  means  a  scientific  abstraction.  It  is 
the  most  concrete  and  solid  of  realities, 
the  one  Reality  which  underlies  all  ap¬ 
pearances,  and  from  the  presence  of  which 
we  can  never  escape.  Suppose,  then,  that 
we  translate  our  abstract  terminology  into 
something  that  is  more  concrete.  Instead 
of  the  force  which  persists,  let  us  speak 
of  the  Power  which  is  always  and  every¬ 
where  manifested  in  phenomena.  Our 
question,  then,  becomes,  What  is  this  in¬ 
finite  and  eternal  Power  like  ?  What  kind 
of  language  shall  we  use  in  describing  it  ? 
Can  we  regard  it  as  in  any  wise  “  mate¬ 
rial,”  or  can  we  speak  of  its  universal  and 
ceaseless  activity  as  in  any  wise  the  work¬ 
ing  of  a  “blind  necessity”?  For  here,  at 
length,  we  have  penetrated  to  the  inner¬ 
most  kernel  of  the  problem ;  and  upon 
the  answer  must  depend  our  mental  atti¬ 
tude  toward  the  mystery  of  existence. 


The  Idea  of  God.  /  5j 

The  answer  is  that  we  cannot  regard 
the  infinite  and  eternal  Power  as  in  any¬ 
wise  “material,”  nor  can  we  attribute  its 
workings  to  “blind  necessity.”  The  eter¬ 
nal  source  of  phenomena  is  the  source  of 
what  we  see  and  hear  and  touch  ;  it  is  the 
source  of  what  we  call  matter,  but  it  can¬ 
not  itself  be  material.  Matter  is  but  the 
generalized  name  we  give  to  those  modi¬ 
fications  which  we  refer  immediately  to  an 
unknown  something  outside  of  ourselves. 
It  was  long  ago  shown  that  all  the  quali¬ 
ties  of  matter  are  what  the  mind  makes 
them,  and  have  no  existence  as  such  apart 
from  the  mind.  In  the  deepest  sense  all 
that  we  really  know  is  mind,  and  as  Clif¬ 
ford  would  say,  what  we  call  the  material 
universe  is  simply  an  imperfect  picture  in 
our  minds  of  a  real  universe  of  mind-stuff.22 
Our  own  mind  we  know  directly  ;  our 
neighbour’s  mind  we  know  by  inference; 
that  which  is  external  to  both  is  a  Power 
hidden  from  sense,  which  causes  states  of 
consciousness  that  are  similar  in  both. 


/ 54  The  Idea  of  God . 

Such  states  of  consciousness  we  call  ma¬ 
terial  qualities,  and  matter  is  nothing  but 
the  sum  of  such  qualities.  To  speak  of  the 
hidden  Power  itself  as  “  material  ”  is  there¬ 
fore  not  merely  to  state  what  is  untrue,  — 
it  is  to  talk  nonsense.  We  are  bound  to 
conceive  of  the  Eternal  Reality  in  terms 
of  the  only  reality  that  we  know,  or  else 
refrain  from  conceiving  it  under  any  form 
whatever.  But  the  latter  alternative  is 
clearly  impossible.23  We  might  as  well  try 
to  escape  from  the  air  in  which  we  breathe 
as  to  expel  from  consciousness  the  Power 
which  is  manifested  throughout  what  we 
call  the  material  universe.  But  the  only 
conclusion  we  can  consistently  hold  is  that 
this  is  the  very  same  power  “which  in 
ourselves  wells  up  under  the  form  of  con¬ 
sciousness.” 

In  the  nature-worship  of  primitive  men, 
beneath  all  the  crudities  of  thought  by 
which  it  was  overlaid  and  obscured,  there 
was  thus  after  all  an  essential  germ  of 
truth  which  modern  philosophy  is  con- 


The  Idea  of  God .  755 

strained  to  recognize  and  reiterate.  As 
the  unity  of  Nature  has  come  to  be  dem¬ 
onstrated,  innumerable  finite  powers,  once 
conceived  as  psychical  and  deified,  have 
been  generalized  into  a  single  infinite 
Power  that  is  still  thought  of  as  psy¬ 
chical.  From  the  crudest  polytheism  we 
have  thus,  by  a  slow  evolution,  arrived  at 
pure  monotheism,  —  the  recognition  of  the 
eternal  God  indwelling  in  the  universe, 
in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being. 

But  in  thus  conceiving  of  God  as  psy¬ 
chical,  as  a  Being  with  whom  the  human 
soul  in  the  deepest  sense  owns  kinship, 
we  must  beware  of  too  carelessly  ascrib¬ 
ing  to  Him  those  specialized  psychical  at¬ 
tributes  characteristic  of  humanity,  which 
one  and  all  imply  limitation  and  weakness. 
We  must  not  forget  the  warning  of  the 
prophet  Isaiah  :  “  My  thoughts  are  not 
your  thoughts,  neither  are  your  ways  my 
ways,  saith  the  Lord.  For  as  the  heavens 
are  higher  than  the  earth,  so  are  my  ways 


1 56  The  Idea  of  God. 

higher  than  your  ways,  and  my  thoughts 
than  your  thoughts.”  Omniscience,  for 
example,  has  been  ascribed  to  God  in 
every  system  of  theism  ;  yet  the  psychical 
nature  to  which  all  events,  past,  present, 
and  future,  can  be  always  simultaneously 
present  is  clearly  as  far  removed  from  the 
limited  and  serial  psychical  nature  of  Man 
as  the  heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth. 
We  are  not  so  presumptuous,  therefore, 
as  to  attempt,  with  some  theologians  of 
the  anthropomorphic  school,  to  inquire  mi¬ 
nutely  into  the  character  of  the  divine  de¬ 
crees  and  purposes.  But  our  task  would 
be  ill-performed  were  nothing  more  to  be 
said  about  that  craving  after  a  final  cause 
which  we  have  seen  to  be  an  essential 
element  in  Man’s  religious  nature.  It 
remains  to  be  shown  that  there  is  a  rea¬ 
sonableness  in  the  universe,  that  in  the 
orderly  sequence  of  events  there  is  a  mean¬ 
ing  which  appeals  to  our  human  intelli¬ 
gence.  Without  adopting  Paley’s  method, 
which  has  been  proved  inadequate,  we 


The  Idea  of  God. 


* 57 


may  nevertheless  boldly  aim  at  an  object 
like  that  at  which  Paley  aimed.  Caution 
is  needed,  since  we  are  dealing  with  a 
symbolic  conception  as  to  which  the  very 
point  in  question  is  whether  there  is  any 
reality  that  answers  to  it.  The  problem 
is  a  hard  one,  but  here  we  suddenly  get 
powerful  help  from  the  doctrine  of  evolu¬ 
tion,  and  especially  from  that  part  of  it 
known  as  the  Darwinian  theory. 


XIV. 

The  Power  that  makes  for  Righteousness . 

LTHOUGH  it  was  the  Darwinian 
theory  of  natural  selection  which 
overthrew  the  argument  from  de¬ 
sign,  yet  —  as  I  have  argued  in  another 
place  —  when  thoroughly  understood  it  will 
be  found  to  replace  as  much  teleology  as 
it  destroys.24  Indeed,  the  doctrine  of  evo¬ 
lution,  in  all  its  chapters,  has  a  certain 
teleological  aspect,  although  it  does  not 
employ  those  methods  which  in  the  hands 
of  the  champions  of  final  causes  have  been 
found  so  misleading.  The  doctrine  of  evo¬ 
lution  does  not  regard  any  given  arrange¬ 
ment  of  things  as  scientifically  explained 
when  it  is  shown  to  subserve  some  good 
purpose,  but  it  seeks  its  explanation  in 
such  antecedent  conditions  as  may  have 
been  competent  to  bring  about  the  ar- 


The  Idea  of  God.  i$g 

rangement  in  question.  Nevertheless,  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  is  not  only  per¬ 
petually  showing  us  the  purposes  which 
the  arrangements  of  Nature  subserve, 
but  throughout  one  large  section  of  the 
ground  which  it  covers  it  points  to  a 
discernible  dramatic  tendency,  a  clearly- 
marked  progress  of  events  toward  a  mighty 
goal.  Now  it  especially  concerns  us  to 
note  that  this  large  section  is  just  the 
one,  and  the  only  one,  which  our  powers 
of  imagination  are  able  to  compass.  The 
astronomic  story  of  the  universe  is  alto¬ 
gether  too  vast  for  us  to  comprehend  in 
such  wise  as  to  tell  whether  it  shows  any 
dramatic  tendency  or  not.25  But  in  the 
story  of  the  evolution  of  life  upon  the  sur¬ 
face  of  our  earth,  where  alone  we  are  able 
to  compass  the  phenomena,  we  see  all 
things  working  together,  through  count¬ 
less  ages  of  toil  and  trouble,  toward  one 
glorious  consummation.  It  is  therefore  a 
fair  inference,  though  a  bold  one,  that  if 
our  means  of  exploration  were  such  that 


160  The  Idea  of  God. 

we  could  compass  the  story  of  all  the  sys¬ 
tems  of  worlds  that  shine  in  the  spacious 
firmament,  we  should  be  able  to  detect  a 
similar  meaning.  At  all  events,  the  story 
which  we  can  decipher  is  sufficiently  im¬ 
pressive  and  consoling.  It  clothes  our 
theistic  belief  with  moral  significance,  re¬ 
veals  the  intense  and  solemn  reality  of 
religion,  and  fills  the  heart  with  tidings  of 
great  joy. 

The  glorious  consummation  toward  which 
organic  evolution  is  tending  is  the  produc¬ 
tion  of  the  highest  and  most  perfect  psy¬ 
chical  life.  Already  the  germs  of  this 
conclusion  existed  in  the  Darwinian  the¬ 
ory  as  originally  stated,  though  men  were 
for  a  time  too  busy  with  other  aspects  of 
the  theory  to  pay  due  attention  to,  them. 
In  the  natural  selection  of  such  individual 
peculiarities  as  conduce  to  the  survival  of 
the  species,  and  in  the  evolution  by  this 
process  of  higher  and  higher  creatures 
endowed  with  capacities  for  a  richer  and 
more  varied  life,  there  might  have  been 


The  Idea  of  God.  161 

seen  a  well-marked  dramatic  tendency,  to¬ 
ward  the  denouement  of  which  every  one 
of  the  myriad  little  acts  of  life  and  death 
during  the  entire  series  of  geologic  aeons 
was  assisting.  The  whole  scheme  was 
teleological,  and  each  single  act  of  nat¬ 
ural  selection  had  a  teleological  meaning. 
Herein  lies  the  reason  why  the  theory  so 
quickly  destroyed  that  of  Paley.  It  did 
not  merely  refute  it,  but  supplanted  it 
with  explanations  which  had  the  merit  of 
being  truly  scientific,  while  at  the  same 
time  they  hit  the  mark  at  which  natural 
theology  had  unsuccessfully  aimed. 

Such  was  the  case  with  the  Darwinian 
theory  as  first  announced.  But  since  it 
has  been  more  fully  studied  in  its  appli¬ 
cation  to  the  genesis  of  Man,  a  wonderful 
flood  of  light  has  been  thrown  upon  the 
meaning  of  evolution,  and  there  appears 
a  reasonableness  in  the  universe  such  as 
had  not  appeared  before.  It  has  been 
shown  that  the  genesis  of  Man  was  due  to 
a  change  in  the  direction  of  the  working 


u 


j62  The  Idea  of  God. 

of  natural  selection,  whereby  psychical  va¬ 
riations  were  selected  to  the  neglect  of 
physical  variations.  It  has  been  shown 
that  one  chief  result  of  this  change  was 
the  lengthening  of  infancy,  whereby  Man 
appeared  on  the  scene  as  a  plastic  crea¬ 
ture  capable  of  unlimited  psychical  prog¬ 
ress.  It  has  been  shown  that  one  chief 
result  of  the  lengthening  of  infancy  was 
the  origination  of  the  family  and  of  human 
society  endowed  with  rudimentary  moral 
ideas  and  moral  sentiments.  It  has  been 
shown  that  through  these  cooperating 
processes  the  difference  between  Man  and 
all  lower  creatures  has  come  to  be  a  differ¬ 
ence  in  kind  transcending  all  other  dif¬ 
ferences  ;  that  his  appearance  upon  the 
earth  marked  the  beginning  of  the  final 
stage  in  the  process  of  development,  the 
last  act  in  the  great  drama  of  creation  ; 
and  that  all  the  remaining  work  of  evolu¬ 
tion  must  consist  in  the  perfecting  of  the 
creature  thus  marvellously  produced.  It 
has  been  further  shown  that  the  perfect- 


The  Idea  of  God.  163 

ing  of  Man  consists  mainly  in  the  ever- 
increasing  predominance  of  the  life  of  the 
soul  over  the  life  of  the  body.  And  lastly, 
it  has  been  shown  that,  whereas  the  ear¬ 
lier  stages  of  human  progress  have  been 
characterized  by  a  struggle  for  existence  * 
like  that  through  which  all  lower  forms  of 
life  have  been  developed,  nevertheless  the 
action  of  natural  selection  upon  Man  is 
coming  to  an  end,  and  his  future  develop¬ 
ment  will  be  accomplished  through  the 
direct  adaptation  of  his  wonderfully  plas¬ 
tic  intelligence  to  the  circumstances  in 
which  it  is  placed.  Hence  it  has  appeared 
that  war  and  all  forms  of  strife,  having 
ceased  to  discharge  their  normal  function, 
and  having  thus  become  unnecessary,  will 
slowly  die  out;26  that  the  feelings  and 
habits  adapted  to  ages  of  strife  will  ulti¬ 
mately  perish  from  disuse ;  and  that  a 
stage  of  civilization  will  be  reached  in 
which  human  sympathy  shall  be  all  in  all, 
and  the  spirit  of  Christ  shall  reign  su¬ 
preme  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  earth. 


164  The  Idea  of  God. 

These  conclusions,  with  the  grounds 
upon  which  they  are  based,  have  been 
succinctly  set  forth  in  my  little  book  en¬ 
titled  “The  Destiny  of  Man  viewed  in  the 
Light  of  his  Origin.”  Startling  as  they 
may  have  seemed  to  some,  they  are  no 
more  so  than  many  of  the  other  truths 
which  have  been  brought  home  to  us  dur¬ 
ing  this  unprecedented  age.  They  are  the 
fruit  of  a  wide  induction  from  the  most 
vitally  important  facts  which  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  has  set  forth  ;  and  they  may 
fairly  claim  recognition  as  an  integral  body 
of  philosophic  doctrine  fit  to  stand  the 
test  of  time.  Here  they  are  summarized 
as  the  final  step  in  my  argument  concern¬ 
ing  the  true  nature  of  theism.  They  add 
new  meanings  to  the  idea  of  God,  as  it  is 
affected  by  modern  knowledge,  while  at 
the  same  time  they  do  but  give  articulate 
voice  to  time-honoured  truths  which  it  was 
feared  the  skepticism  of  our  age  might 
have  rendered  dumb  and  powerless.  For 
if  we  express  in  its  most  concentrated 


The  Idea  of  God .  765 

form  the  meaning  of  these  conclusions 
regarding  Man’s  origin  and  destiny,  we 
find  that  it  affords  the  full  justification 
of  the  fundamental  ideas  and  sentiments 
which  have  animated  religion  at  all  times. 
We  see  Man  still  the  crown  and  glory  of 
the  universe  and  the  chief  object  of  divine 
care,  yet  still  the  lame  and  halting  crea¬ 
ture,  loaded  with  a  brute-inheritance  of 
original  sin,  whose  ultimate  salvation  is 
slowly  to  be  achieved  through  ages  of 
moral  discipline.  We  see  the  chief  agency 
which  produced  him  —  natural  selection 
which  always  works  through  strife  —  ceas¬ 
ing  to  operate  upon  him,  so  that,  until 
human  strife  shall  be  brought  to  an  end, 
there  goes  on  a  struggle  between  his 
lower  and  his  higher  impulses,  in  which 
the  higher  must  finally  conquer.  And  in 
all  this  we  find  the  strongest  imaginable 
incentive  to  right  living,  yet  one  that  is 
still  the  same  in  principle  with  that  set 
forth  by  the  great  Teacher  who  first 
brought  men  to  the  knowledge  of  the  true 
God. 


1 66  The  Idea  of  God . 

As  to  the  conception  of  Deity,  in  the 
shape  impressed  upon  it  by  our  modern 
knowledge,  I  believe  I  have  now  said 
enough  to  show  that  it  is  no  empty  for¬ 
mula  or  metaphysical  abstraction  which 
we  would  seek  to  substitute  for  the  living 
God.  The  infinite  and  eternal  Power  that 
is  manifested  in  every  pulsation  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  is  none  other  than  the  living  God. 
We  may  exhaust  the  resources  of  meta¬ 
physics  in  debating  how  far  his  nature 
may  fitly  be  expressed  in  terms  applicable 
to  the  psychical  nature  of  Man ;  such  vain 
attempts  will  only  serve  to  show  how  we 
are  dealing  with  a  theme  that  must  ever 
transcend  our  finite  powers  of  conception. 
But  of  some  things  we  may  feel  sure. 
Humanity  is  not  a  mere  local  incident  in 
an  endless  and  aimless  series  of  cosmical 
changes.  The  events  of  the  universe  are 
not  the  work  of  chance,  neither  are  they 
the  outcome  of  blind  necessity.  Practi¬ 
cally  there  is  a  purpose  in  the  world 
whereof  it  is  our  highest  duty  to  learn 


The  Idea  of  God.  i6y 

the  lesson,  however  well  or  ill  we  may 
fare  in  rendering  a  scientific  account  of 
it.  When  from  the  dawn  of  life  we  see 
all  things  working  together  toward  the 
evolution  of  the  highest  spiritual  attri¬ 
butes  of  Man,  we  know,  however  the 
words  may  stumble  in  which  we  try  to 
say  it,  that  God  is  in  the  deepest  sense  a 
moral  Being.  The  everlasting  source  of 
phenomena  is  none  other  than  the  infi¬ 
nite  Power  that  makes  for  righteousness. 
Thou  canst  not  by  searching  find  Him 
out ;  yet  put  thy  trust  in  Him,  and  against 
thee  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail ;  for 
there  is  neither  wisdom  nor  understanding 
nor  counsel  against  the  Eternal. 


NOTES. 

- 0— 

A.  — MEDITATIONS  OF  A  SAVAGE. 

In  the  presence  of  the  great  mystery  of  exist¬ 
ence,  the  thoughts  of  the  untutored  savage  are 
not  always  so  very  unlike  those  of  civilized  men, 
as  we  may  see  from  the  following  pathetic  words 
of  a  Kafir,  named  Sekese,  in  conversation  with  a 
French  traveller,  M.  Arbrouseille,  on  the  subject 
of  the  Christian  religion  :  — 

“  Your  tidings,”  said  this  uncultivated  barba¬ 
rian,  “are  what  I  want,  and  I  was  seeking  before 
I  knew  you,  as  you  shall  hear  and  judge  for  your¬ 
self.  Twelve  years  ago  I  went  to  feed  my  flocks  ; 
the  weather  was  hazy.  I  sat  down  upon  a  rock 
and  asked  myself  sorrowful  questions  ;  yes,  sor¬ 
rowful,  because  I  was  unable  to  answer  them. 
Who  has  touched  the  stars  with  his  hands  —  on 
what  pillars  do  they  rest,  I  asked  myself.  The 
waters  never  weary,  they  know  no  other  law  than 
to  flow  without  ceasing  from  morning  till  night 
and  from  night  till  morning ;  but  where  do  they 
stop,  and  who  makes  them  flow  thus  ?  The  clouds 


Notes.  169 

also  come  and  go,  and  burst  in  water  over  the 
earth.  Whence  come  they  —  who  sends  them  ? 
The  diviners  certainly  do  not  give  us  rain;  for 
how  could  they  do  it  ?  and  why  do  not  I  see  them 
with  my  own  eyes  when  they  go  up  to  heaven  to 
fetch  it  ?  I  cannot  see  the  wind ;  but  what  is  it  ? 
who  brings  it,  makes  it  blow  and  roar  and  terrify 
us  ?  Do  I  know  how  the  corn  sprouts  ?  Yester¬ 
day  there  was  not  a  blade  in  my  field,  to-day  I 
returned  to  the  field  and  found  some ;  who  can 
have  given  to  the  earth  the  wisdom  and  the  power 
to  produce  it  ?  Then  I  buried  my  head  in  both 
my  hands.”  —  Cited  in  Picton,  Mystery  of  Matter, 
p.  222. 


B.  — THE  NAME  GOD. 

None  of  the  dictionaries  offer  a  satisfactory  ex¬ 
planation  of  the  word  God.  It  was  once  commonly 
supposed  to  be  related  to  the  adjective  good, ,  but 
Grimm  long  ago  showed  that  this  connection  is, 
to  say  the  least,  very  improbable.  It  has  also 
been  sought  to  identify  it  with  Persian  Khodd, 
from  Zend  qvadata ,  Skr.  svadata ,  Lat.  a  se  datus , 
in  which  the  idea  is  that  of  self-existence  ;  but  this 
fanciful  etymology  was  exploded  by  Aufrecht.  The 
arrant  guesswork  of  Donaldson,  who  would  con¬ 
nect  God  with  Ka\6s,  and  0e6s  with  Tid-ti/xi  (New  Cra- 
tylus,  p.  710),  scarcely  deserves  mention  in  these 


Notes. 


lyo 

days.  Among  the  more  scientific  philologists  of 
our  time,  August  Fick,  in  treating  of  the  “  Wort- 
schatz  dergermanischen  Spracheinheit,”  simply  re¬ 
fers  God  to  a  primitive  Teutonic  gutha ,  and  says 
no  more  about  it.  (Vergl.  Woerterbuch  der  indo- 
germanischen  Sprachen,  III.  107.)  He  is  followed 
by  Skeat  (Etymological  Dictionary,  p.  238),  who 
adds  that  there  is  “  no  connection  with  good .” 
Eduard  Muller  says :  “  So  bedenklich  die  zusam- 
menstellung  mit  good,  so  fraglich  ist  doch  auch 
noch  die  urverwandtschaft  mit  pers.  Khoda  gott, 
oder  skr.  gfidha  mysterium,  oder  skr.  giiddha 
purus ;  Heyne  :  ‘  als  sich  verhiillender,  unsicht- 
barer,  vgl.  skr.  gtih  fiir  gudh  celare.’  ”  (Woerter¬ 
buch  der  englischen  Sprache,  p.  456.) 

Max  Muller  has  much  more  plausibly  suggested 
that  God  was  formerly  a  heathen  name  for  the 
Deity,  which  passed  into  Christian  usage,  like  the 
Latin  Deus .  (Science  of  Language,  6th  ed.  II. 
317.)  Following  this  hint,  I  suggested,  several 
years  ago  (North  Amer.  Review,  Oct.  1869,  p.  354), 
that  God  is  probably  identical  with  Wo  dan  or  Odin , 
the  name  of  the  great  Northern  deity,  the  chief 
object  of  the  worship  of  our  forefathers.  This  re¬ 
lation  cf  an  initial  G  to  an  initial  W  is  a  very  com¬ 
mon  one  ;  as  for  example  Guillaume  and  Williajn , 
guerre  and  war,  guardia?i  and  warden ,  guile  and 
wile .  The  same  thing  is  seen  in  Armorican  guasta 


Notes. 


171 

and  Ital.  gu  as  tare,  as  compared  with  Lat.  vastare, 
Eng.  waste ;  and  in  the  Eng.  quick ,  Goth,  quivs , 
Lat.  vivus.  In  Erchempert’s  Historia  Langobar- 
dorum,  11,  Pertz,  III.  245,  we  find  Ludoguicus  for 
Ludovicus.  Not  only  is  this  relation  a  common 
one,  but  there  are  plenty  of  specific  instances  of 
it  in  the  case  of  IVodan.  In  Germany  we  have  the 
town  names  of  Godesberg ,  Gudenberg ,  and  Godens- 
holt ,  all  derived  from  Wodan.  In  the  Westphalian 
dialect,  Wednesday  (“  day  of  Wodan  ”)  is  called  Go- 
denstag  or  Gunstagj  in  Nether-Rhenish,  Gudens- 
tag;  in  Flemish,  Goenstag.  See  Thorpe,  North¬ 
ern  Mythol.  I.  229;  Taylor,  Words  and  Places, 
323  ;  and  cf.  Grimm,  Gesch.  der  deutschen  Sprache, 
296.  The  Westphalian  Saxons  wrote  both  Guodan 
and  Gudan.  Odin  was  also  called  Godin  (Laing, 
Heimskringla,  I.  74),  and  Paulus  Diaconus  tells  us 
that  the  Lombards  pronounced  Wodan  as  Guodan. 
In  view  of  such  a  convergence  of  proofs,  I  am  sur¬ 
prised  that  attention  was  not  long  ago  called  to 
this  etymology. 

Wodan  was  originally  the  storm-spirit  or  animat¬ 
ing  genius  of  the  wind,  answering  in  many  re¬ 
spects  to  the  Greek  Hermes  and  the  Vedic  Sara- 
meyas.  See  my  Myths  and  Myth-makers,  19,  20, 
32,  35>  67,  124,  204;  and  cf.  Mackay,  Religious 
Development  of  the  Greeks  and  Hebrews,  i.  260- 
273- 


REFERENCES. 


- 0 - 

M.  M.,  Myths  and  Myth-makers,  1872;  C.  P.,  Outlines  of  Cosmic 
Philosophy,  1874;  U.  W.,  The  Unseen  World,  1876;  D.,  Dar¬ 
winism  and  Other  Essays,  1879;  E.  E.,  Excursions  of  an  Evo¬ 
lutionist,  1884;  D.  M.,  The  Destiny  of  Man,  1884;  A.  P.  I., 
American  Political  Ideas,  1885. 

1.  E.  E.  56-77. 

2.  C.  P.  i.  230. 

3.  C.  P.  i.  157,  177-179- 

4.  M.  M.  18-21,  et passim. 

5.  M.  M.  220. 

6.  M.  M.  232. 

7.  M.  M.  236;  E.  E,  251. 

8.  A.  P.  I.  78,  81. 

9.  U.  W.  10. 

10.  D.  M.  104-107. 

11.  E.  E.  262. 

12.  M.  M.  236. 

13.  C.  P.  ii.  383. 

14.  U.  W.  1 1 8. 

15.  D.  5-8;  C.  P.  ii.  283. 

16,  17.  C.  P.  ii.  428. 

18.  C.  P.  i.  183 ;  ii.  449. 


References. 


*73 


19.  M.  M.  122. 

20.  C.  P.  ii.  405. 

21.  C.  P.  ii.  381-410* 

22.  E.  E.  327-336. 

23.  C.  P.  ii.  449. 

24.  D.  M.  1 1 3  ;  cf.  C.  P.  ii.  406. 

25.  D.  103. 

26.  D.  M.  77-95;  A.  P.  I.  101-152. 


X 


IMPORTANT  BOOKS 


BY 


JOHN  FISKE. 


OUTLINES  OF  COSMIC  PHILOSOPHY,  based  on  the  Doo 

trine  of  Evolution.  With  Criticisms  on  the  Positive 
Philosophy.  2  vols.  8vo,  pp.  465,  523,  $6.00. 

Mr.  Darwin,  after  reading  this  work,  wrote  as  follows 
to  Mr.  Fiske :  — 

“You  must  allow  me  to  thank  you  for  the  very  great  interest 

^‘^erin^Qy^^reLi^o  lucM^^exp^itor^and^therefo^thiukerj 
I  never  y  k  ^  t  j  understand  nearly  the  whole,  though 

Srt?  zusxrszx 

jS'interes'ted  Z  Tad  alriveTfr  ^ 

It  pleased  -  M  li  oaif  of  “i‘e  “aa,e  conclusions  with  you, 

or  never  have  given  my  reasons  lor  such 

conclusions.” 

This  work  of  Mr.  Tiske's  may  be  not  unfairly  designated  the  most 
important^ contribution  yet  made  by  America  to  hter- 

q  f n  via  theory  of  the  influence  of  prolonged  infancy  upon 

social  development  (Part  II.,  chap  xxii.)  e^l^io^r,Jthe  theory 
to  be  considered  a  distinctly  important  Articular  - 

of  the  origin  of  species,  and  of  the  origin  of  man  in  particular. 

Academy  (London). 

Ills  most  important  suggestion,  that  of  the  influence  L^s'wf 
period  of  feeble  adolescence  upon  man  s  social  development ,  js ,  we 
think,  a  permanent  contribution  to  the  development  theoiy. 
tion  (New  York). 

He  recognizes  Mr.  Spencer  as  his  teacher  and  guide;  but  he  has 

?I°ty  of  specdi;tion.-GEORC.BEirLKY,  in  TMunc  (New  York). 

Hr.  Tiske’s  work  .  .  ,  is  the  first  important  eontributton  made 

by  America  to  the  evolution  philosophy,  •  •  •  ^  purport  of 

r/cSoW»m°  Slhe SK^SSS;  (hondon). 


The  author  asserts  that  a  system  of  philosophy  has  been  con¬ 
structed,  out  of  purely  scientific  materials,  .  .  .  which  opposes  a 
direct  negative  to  every  one  of  the  theorems  of  which  Positivism  is 
made  up.  —  Scotsman  (Edinburgh). 

Mr.  Fiske  is  not  a  mere  compiler  from  Mr.  Spencer's  works,  nor 
is  he  simply  a  popularizer  of  au  abstruse  theory.  He  works  his 
way  to  the  chief  results  of  Mr.  Spencer's  argument  with  independ¬ 
ence  and  self-reliance.  In  many  places  he  has  presented  his  mas¬ 
ter's  doctrine  in  new  aspects  or  carried  it  forward  to  new  conclu¬ 
sions,  while  throughout  he  adds  something  to  the  original  from 
which  he  draws  by  freshness  of  illustration  and  individuality  of 
literary  style.  ...  It  is  curious  to  note  the  almost  fierce  persist¬ 
ence  with  which  the  author  returns  again  and  again  to  an  attack 
on  the  doctrines  of  Comte.  .  .  .  The  most  striking  part  of  Mr. 
Fiske’s  social  speculations  is  the  hypothesis  by  which  he  proposes 
to  bridge  over  the  gulf  which  divides  the  merely  gregarious  and 
sympathetic  brutes  from  morally  constituted  man  (Part  II.,  chap, 
xxii.).  —  James  Sully,  in  Examiner  (London). 

Mr.  Fiske  is  a  disciple  who  thinks  for  himself,  and  who  has  no 
hesitation,  when  necessary,  in  criticising  him  whom  he  acknowl¬ 
edges  as  master.  .  .  .  He  is  so  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  philo¬ 
sophic  spirit  that  his  work  merits  a  careful  perusal ;  it  has  the  es¬ 
pecial  attraction  of  being  written  in  excellent  temper  and  admirable 
English.  —  Daily  News  (London). 

Mr.  Fiske’s  work  shows  a  complete  and  independent  mastery  of 
the  subject  in  all  its  bearings,  together  with  a  power  of  lucid  and 
vigorous  exposition  unexcelled  in  any  philosophical  work  with 
which  we  are  acquainted.  —  Daily  Globe  (Boston). 

It  is  our  best  American  book  on  the  evolution  philosophy,  and 
deserves  to  rank  with  the  productions  of  the  great  English  thinkers. 
—■Index  (Boston).  . 

DARWINISM  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS.  New  Edition,  en¬ 
larged.  12mo,  pp.  283,  $2.00. 

Contents:  Darwinism  Verified;  Mr.  Mivart  on  Dar¬ 
winism  ;  Dr.  Bateman  on  Darwinism  ;  Dr.  Buchner  on 
Darwinism  ;  A  Crumb  for  the  “  Modern  Symposium  ;  ” 
Chauncey  Wright ;  What  is  Inspiration  ?  Modern  Witch¬ 
craft  ;  Comte’s  Positive  Philosophy  ;  Mr.  Buckle’s  Falla¬ 
cies  ;  Postscript  on  Mr.  Buckle  ;  The  Races  of  the  Dan¬ 
ube  ;  Liberal  Education ;  University  Reform  ;  A  Libra¬ 
rian’s  Work. 

If  ever  there  was  a  spirit  thoroughly  invigorated  by  the  “joy  of 
right  understanding  ”  it  is  that  of  the  author  of  these  pieces.  Even 
the  reader  catches  something  of  his  intellectual  buoyancy,  and  is 
thus  carried  almost  lightly  through  discussions  which  would  be 
hard  and  dry  in  the  hands  of  a  less  animated  writer.  ...  No  less 
confident  and  serene  than  his  acceptance  of  the  utmost  logical  re¬ 
sults  of  recent  scientific  discovery  is  Mr.  Fiske's  assurance  that  the 


foundations  of  spiritual  truths,  so  called,  cannot  possibly  be  shaken 
thereby.  .  .  .  Warm  personal  admiration  and  acute  critical  dis¬ 
cernment  could  not  well  be  blended  in  finer  proportions  than 
in  the  article  on  the  lamented  Mr.  Wright.  .  .  The  article  on  Mr. 
Buckle’s  Fallacies  has  one  aspect  more  remarkable  than  all  the  resfc. 
It  was  written  and  published  when  the  “  History  of  Civilization  ” 
was  new, — that  is  to  say,  when  the  writer  was  nineteen  years  of 
age;  and  the  years  —  almost  nineteen  —  which  have  elapsed 

since  then  have  rather  confirmed  than  u... acted  from  its  value  as  a 
piece  of  criticism.  The  judgment  of  posterity  on  the  most  am¬ 
bitious  book  of  its  generation,  and  one  of  the  most  bewildering, 
was  actually  anticipated  by  a  stripling,  and  its  final  rank  assigned 
with  singular  fairness  and  precision.  Scarcely  even  in  the  style  is 
there  a  trace  of  immaturity.  .  .  .  The  essay  on  the  Races  of  the 
Danube  forcibly  suggests  the  idea  that  Mr.  Fiske  has  qualities  of 
mind,  almost  unused  hitherto,  which  would  make  him  an  excep¬ 
tionally  valuable  writer  of  history.  —  Atlantic  Monthly. 

The  article  on  the  Races  of  the  Danube  shows  that  Mr.  Fiske  has 
a  special  talent  for  history.  —  Nation  (New  York). 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS:  Old  Tales  and  Su¬ 
perstitions  interpreted  by  Comparative  Mythology. 
12mo,  pp.  251,  $2.00. 

Contents  :  The  Origins  of  Folk-Lore ;  The  Descent 
of  Fire;  Werewolves  and  Swan-Maidens;  Light  and 
Darkness;  Myths  of  the  Barbaric  World;  Juventus 
Mundi ;  The  Primeval  Ghost-World. 

Mr.  Fiske  has  given  us  a  book  which  is  at  once  sensible  and  at¬ 
tractive,  on  a  subject  about  which  much  is  written  that  is  crotchety 
or  tedious.  —  W.  R.  S.  Ralston,  in  Athenceum  (London). 

This  volume  is  not  a  text-book  of  scientific  mythology.  It  con 
tains  seven  essays  crowded  with  quotations  and  examples,  in  the 
abundant  use  of  which  the  writer's  learning  is  not  more  conspicu¬ 
ous  than  his  literary  skill.  Not  everybody  can  shape  and  control 
such  wealth  of  material.  —  Christian  Union  (New  York). 

He  has,  as  we  must  admit,  one  qualification  for  attaining  his  ob¬ 
ject,  in  being  completely  master  of  his  subject,  and  in  knowing 
also  how  to  treat  it  in  an  attractive  manner.  —  Felix  Liebrecht,  in 
Academy  (London). 

It  is  extremely  interesting  for  its  happy  combination  of  psycho¬ 
logic  analysis  with  a  study  of  the  primitive  beliefs  of  mankind.  .  . . 
A  perusal  of  this  thorough  work  cannot  be  too  strongly  recom¬ 
mended  to  all  who  are  interested  in  comparative  mythology.  —  lie « 
vue  Critique  (Paris). 

Mr.  Fiske  is  a  master  of  perspicuous  explanation.  —  World  (New 
York). 


Its  weight  of  sense  and  its  lucidity  will  extend  Mr.  Fiske’s  repu¬ 
tation  as  one  of  the  clearest-minded,  most  conscientiously  labori¬ 
ous  and  well-trained  students  in  this  country.  —  Nation  (New 
York). 

With  the  capacity  for  profound  research  and  the  power  of  crit¬ 
ical  consideration,  he  has  a  singular  grace  of  style,  and  an  art  of 
clear  and  simple  statement,  which  will  not  let  the  most  indifferent 
refuse  knowledge  of  the  topics  treated.*  In  such  a  field  as  the  dis¬ 
cussion  of  old  fables  and  superstitions  affords,  we  have  not  only  to 
admire  Mr.  Fiske  for  the  charm  of  his  manner,  but  for  the  justice 
and  honesty  of  his  method.  —  Atlantic  Monthly. 

It  is  both  an  amusing  and  instructive  book,  evincing  large  re¬ 
search,  and  giving  its  results  in  a  lucid  and  attractive  style.  —  E.  P. 
Whipple. 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD,  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS.  12rao, 
pp.  349,  $2.00. 

Contents:  The  Unseen  World;  The  To-morrow  of 
Death ;  The  Jesus  of  History ;  The  Christ  of  Dogma ; 
A  Word  about  Miracles;  Draper  on  Science  and  Re¬ 
ligion;  Nathan  the  Wise;  Historical  Difficulties;  The 
Famine  of  1770  in  Bengal;  Spain  and  the  Netherlands; 
Longfellow’s  Dante ;  Paine’s  St.  Peter ;  A  Philosophy 
of  Art ;  Athenian  and  American  Life. 

We  think  every  one  will  remark,  while  examining  this  volume,  the 
variety  of  subjects  treated  ;  and  if  anybody  has  formed  an  opinion 
that  Mr.  Fiske  is  a  man  who  cares  for  nothing  but  myths  and  phi¬ 
losophy,  he  will  find  occasion  to  correct  it.  Many  of  these  papers 
are  critical  reviews  of  important  books  widely  different  in  their 
subjects  ;  but  to  each  study  the  writer  seems  to  have  brought,  be¬ 
sides  an  excellent  quality  of  discriminating  judgment,  full  and 
fresh  special  knowledge,  that  enables  him  to  supply  much  infor¬ 
mation  on  the  subject,  whatever  it  may  be,  that  is  not  to  be  found 
in  the  volume  he  is  noticing.  To  the  knowledge,  analytical  power, 
and  faculty  of  clear  statement,  that  appear  in  all  these  papers,  Mr. 
Fiske  adds  a  just  independence  of  thought  that  conciliates  respect¬ 
ful  consideration  of  his  views,  even  when  they  are  most  at  variance 
with  the  commonly  accepted  ones.  —  Boston  Advertiser. 

Of  all  the  criticism  and  discussion  called  forth  both  in  this  coun¬ 
try  and  in  England  by  that  remarkable  little  book,  “The  Unseen 
Universe,”  Mr.  John  Fiske’s  “  Unseen  World”  is  at  once  the  most 
profound,  the  most  comprehensive,  and  the  most  lucid.  .  .  .  The 
mere  statement  of  a  thought  in  his  perspicuous  and  translucent 
language  gives  it,  in  most  cases,  a  new  meaning  and  an  added  force. 
—  Appletons’  Journal. 


They  are  all  striking  compositions,  and  deserving  of  a  place  tn 
the  fore  rank  of  this  kind  of  literature.  It  is  not  often  that  more 
robust  and  healthy  reading  can  be  found  between  the  covers  of  a 
single  volume.  —  San  Francisco  Bulletin. 

The  vigor,  the  earnestness,  the  honesty,  and  the  freedom  from 
cant  and  subtlety  in  his  writing  are  exceedingly  refreshing.  He  is 
a  scholar,  a  critic,  and  a  thinker  of  the  first  order  —  Christian 
Register. 

Mr.  Fiske  has  won  for  himself  a  foremost  place  among  American 
writers  on  physical  science  ;  and  the  present  volume  of  essays 
hears  testimony  not  only  to  his  ability  as  a  physicist,  but  to  his 
versatility  of  mind  and  critical  powers  as  well.  — , Canadian 
Monthly. 

He  is  one  of  our  foremost  religious  thinkers. —  Times  (Neve 
York). 

The  line  of  argument  is  so  plain  that  all  can  follow  it,  and  the 
Style  is  wondrously  charming.  —  Index  (Boston). 

Mr.  John  Fiske  is  a  devoted  student  of  Dante.  The  review  of  Mr. 
Longfellow's  work  is  an  admirable  essay  upon  translating  Dante, — 
an  essay  showing  a  very  fine  critical  feeling  and  thorough  knowl« 
edge  of  the  subject.  —  Transcript  (Boston). 

He  is  a  scholar  profoundly  versed  in  ancient  and  modern  lore,  a 
thinker  familiar  with  all  shades  of  thought,  an  observer  who  stud¬ 
ies  men  as  well  as  books,  and  withal  a  •writer  of  the  purest  and 
most  graphic  English.  —  Inter- Ocean  (Chicago). 

He  finely  exposes  the  materialistic  character  of  the  book  called 
the  “  Unseen  Universe,”  •which  has  been  so  highly  extolled  by  the 
“Southern  Cross”  and  other  papers.  —  Advertiser  (Maryborough, 
Australia). 

The  book  has  a  unity  and  charm  in  the  clearness  of  the  thought 
and  the  beauty  of  such  a  style  as  was  perhaps  never  before  brought 
to  the  illustration  of  the  topics  with  which  Mr.  Fiske  habitually 
deals.  There  is  something  better  still  in  the  admirable  spirit  of  his 
writing;  it  is  of  all  writing  of  its  sort,  probably,  the  most  humane. 
...  He  has  already  achieved  a  place  as  wholly  his  own  as  it  is 
eminent.  — Atlantic  Monthly . 


EXCURSIONS  OF  AN  EVOLUTIONIST.  12rao,  pp.  379, 

$2.00. 

Contents:  Europe  before  the  Arrival  of  Man;  The 
Arrival  of  Man  in  Europe;  Our  Aryan  Forefathers; 
What  we  learn  from  Old  Aryan  Words;  Was  there  a 
Primeval  Mother-Tongue  'i  Sociology  and  Hero-Wor- 


ship ;  Heroes  oi  Industry ;  The  Causes  of  Persecution -, 
The  Origins  of  Protestantism ;  The  True  Lesson  of 
Protestantism ;  Evolution  and  Religion ;  The  Meaning 
of  Infancy;  A  Universe  of  Mind-Stuff;  In  Memoriam: 
Charles  Darwin. 

Among  our  thoughtful  essayists  there  are  none  more  brilliant 
than  Mr.  John  Fiske.  His  pure  style  suits  his  clear  thought.  He 
does  not  write  unless  he  has  something  to  say ;  and  when  he  does 
write  he  shows  not  only  that  he  has  thoroughly  acquainted  himself 
with  the  subject,  but  that  he  has  to  a  rare  degree  the  art  of  co 
massing  his  matter  as  to  bring  out  the  true  value  of  the  leading 
points  in  artistic  relief.  It  is  this  perspective  which  makes  his 
work  such  agreeable  reading  even  on  abstruse  subjects,  and  has 
enabled  him  to  play  the  same  part  in  popularizing  Spencer  in  this 
country  that  Littr<5  performed  for  (Jomte  in  France,  and  Dumont 
for  Bentham  in  England.  The  same  qualities  appear  to  good  ad¬ 
vantage  in  his  new  volume,  which  contains  his  later  essays  on  his 
favorite  subject  of  evolution.  .  .  .  They  are  well  worth  reperusal. 
—  The  Nation  (New  York). 

These  essays  are  all  full  of  thought  and  worthy  of  preservation, 
while  several  of  them  are  entitled  to  rank  among  the  very  best  es¬ 
says  of  American  writers.  For  depth  of  thought,  scholarship,  lit¬ 
erary  taste,  critical  ability,  and  the  power  of  clear  and  vigorous 
exposition  combined ,  Mr.  Fiske  has  no  equal  in  this  country  and 
but  few  equals  among  European  writers.  He  does  not  write  on  a 
subject  until  he  has  acquainted  himself  with  it ;  and  then  he  pre¬ 
sents  his  thought,  which  often  has  the  merit  of  originality,  with  a 
lucidness  and  attractiveness  of  style  which  make  it  easy  to  follow 
him  in  his  treatment  of  even  difficult  topics.  It  is  a  pleasure  to 
turn  from  our  merely  literary  writers  to  the  essays  of  Mr.  F'iske, 
whose  clear  thought,  discriminating  judgment,  and  philosophic 
spirit,  together  with  his  fine  taste  and  perspicuity  of  style,  make 
his  writings  both  instructive  and  entertaining.  —  Index  (Boston). 

The  vividness  and  directness  of  the  styler  is  second  only  to  the 
bracing  and  stimulating  quality  of  the  matter  This  book  comes 
nearer  than  anything  we  now  think  of  among  American  publica¬ 
tions  to  successfully  popularizing,  the  results  of  science  without 
debilitating  or  misinterpreting  the  same.  The  first  papers  of  the 
book  particularly  emulate  the  clearness  of  Huxley.  ...  It  com¬ 
pels  assent  to  the  dreaded  “  new  way  of  looking  at  things,”  but  in 
such  a  way  that  when  the  assent  is  given  the  dread  is  all  gone.  It 
is  a  good  book  for  the  busy  preacher  on  account  of  its  wealth  o.' 
facts,  so  arranged  as  to  reveal  the  thought  that  lies  back  of  each, 
fact.  Each  conclusion  suggests  a  lesson.  —  Unity  (Chicago). 


Mr.  Fiske,  under  the  above  title,  makes  his  excursions  through 
the  realms  of  science,  and  evolves  “  evolution  ”  in  a.  most  admirable 
manner  —  physical  and  psychical  —  by  the  “  testimony  of  the  rocks,” 
and  with  wonderful  wisdom  explains  the  origin  of  matter  and  man 
go  truthfully  possible  that  it  is  accepted  as  exceedingly  probable, 
if  not  certain,  by  the  thoughtful  reader.  It  is  fascinating  to  read 
his  proofs  and  speculations  upon  a  subject  grown  so  interesting,  and 


the  reader  is  disposed  to  apply  the  same  term  of  praise  upon  his 
work  as  he  bestowed  upon  Clifford:  “  Such  scientific  exposition  as 
this  is  as  beautiful  as  poetry.”  —  Hartford  Post. 

Mr.  Fiske  is  the  master  of  an  extremely  lucid  and  attractive 
literary  style,  and  brings  to  all  questions  which  he  discusses  the 
fruits  of  a  very  industrious  reading  and  examination  of  authorities. 
.  .  .  Whether  one  agrees  with  him  or  not  one  cannot  fail  to  receive 
much  instruction  and  definite  intellectual  impulse  from  the  reading 
of  this  volume.  .  .  .  While  heartily  dissenting  from  many  of  the 
views  advanced  in  this  book,  we  commend  it  to  all  students  who 
care  for  the  honest  judgment  of  an  honest  man.  —  Christian  Union. 


THE  DESTINY  OF  MAN,  viewed  in  the  Light  of  his 

Origin.  16mo,  pp.  121,  $1.00. 

Contents  :  Man’s  Place  in  Nature  as  affected  by  the 
Copernican  Theory  ;  As  affected  by  Darwinism  ;  On  the 
Earth  there  will  never  be  a  Higher  Creature  than  Man ; 
The  Origin  of  Infancy  ;  The  Dawning  of  Consciousness ; 
Lengthening  of  Infancy  and  Concomitant  Increase  of 
Brain  Surface;  Change  in  the  Direction  of  the  Working 
of  Natural  Selection  ;  Growing  Predominance  of  the  Psy¬ 
chical  Life  ;  The  Origins  of  Society  and  Morality  ;  Im¬ 
provableness  of  Man;  Universal  Warfare  of  Primeval 
Men  ;  First  checked  by  the  Beginnings  of  Industrial  Civ¬ 
ilization  ;  Methods  of  Political  Development  and  Elimina¬ 
tion  of  Warfare;  End  of  the  Working  of  Natural  Selec¬ 
tion  upon  Man  ;  Throwing  off  the  Brute-Inheritance  ; 
The  Message  of  Christianity ;  The  Question  as  to  a 
Future  Life. 

Mr.  Fiske  has  long  held  rank  as  one  of  the  most  profound  and  ex¬ 
act  of  Americas  thinkers,  and  his  little  monograph  will  serve  to 
extend  that  deserved  fame  among  a  class  of  readers  who  are  not  or¬ 
dinarily  interested  in  the  literature  of  science.  Mr.  Fiske's  book  is, 
in  a  word,  a  plea  for  faith  in  the  immortality  of  man,  based  on  the 
doctrine  of  evolution.  With  a  superb  command  of  all  the  knowl¬ 
edge  bearing  upon  the  philosophy  of  Darwinism,  to  which  he  has 
himself  been  a  noteworthy  contributor,  Mr.  Fiske  sums  up  in  elo¬ 
quent  periods  the  process  of  evolutionary  creation  from  the  origin 
of  infancy  to  the  beginnings  of  industrial  and  political  development 
which  have  made  human  society  what  it  is  to-day  ;  and  then,  look¬ 
ing  into  the  future,  he  foretells  how  natural  selection,  working  on 
the  lines  already  marked  out,  shall  attain  its  perfect  work.  The 
whole  argument,  or  rather  exposition,  is  a  marvel  of  condensation. 
—  Boston  Traveller. 


Mr.  Fiske  has  given  us  in  his  “  Destiny  of  Man  ”  a  most  attracv 
ive  condensation  of  his  views  as  expressed  in  his  various  othei 
works.  One  is  charmed  by  the  directness  and  clearness  of  his  style, 
his  simple  and  pure  English,  and  his  evident  knowledge  of  his  sub¬ 
ject.  ...  Of  one  thing  we  may  be  sure,  that  none  are  leading  us 
more  surely  or  rapidly  to  the  full  truth  than  men  like  the  author 
of  this  little  book,  who  reverently  study  the  works  of  God  for  the 
lessons  which  he  would  teach  his  children. —  Christian  Union  (Kew 
York). 

Professor  Fiske  is  always  interesting.  His  exposition,  step  by 
step,  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  is  admirably  adapted  for  those 
prejudiced  against  it  to  read  —  simple,  pleasant,  and  clear,  and  ex¬ 
pressly  designed  to  disarm  hostility  by  showing  that  it  is  by  no 
means  absolutely  incompatible  with  accepted  religious  beliefs  —  at 
least,  with  their  essential  qualities.  —  Overland  Monthly  (San  Fran¬ 
cisco). 

It  is  a  remarkable  contribution  to  the  literature  of  religious 
thought.  .  .  .  It  will  prove  that  evolution  is  at  least  not  irreverent. 
•  .  .  it  is  packed  full  of  learning  and  suggestion,  in  a  style  at  once 
simple  and  beautiful,  and  is  worth  a  dozen  volumes  of  ordinary 
sermons.  —  Philadelphia  Press. 

This  essay  will  and  should  attract  wide  attention,  founded  as  it  is 
upon  modern  science  and  marking  the  way  in  an  advanced  path  in 
religio-scientific  inquiry.  Mr.  Fiske  is  acknowledged  one  of  the 
first  of  scientific  thinkers,  and  his  conclusions  have  more  than  the 
usual  weight.  —  Albany  Journal. 

Ilis  little  volume  will  be  highly  prized  by  those  who  enjoy  seeing 
one  of  the  most  profound  themes  which  can  occupy  the  attention 
treated  with  eloquence  and  strength,  with  scientific  insight  and  im¬ 
aginative  vigor.  —  Buffalo  Commercial  Advertiser. 

The  reverent  spirit  of  the  book,  the  wide  range  of  illustrations, 
the  remarkable  lucidity  of  thought  and  style,  and  the  noble  elo¬ 
quence  that  characterizes  it,  render  this  book  one  of  striking  value 
aud  interest.  —  Salem  Gazette. 

THE  IDEA  OF  GOD  AS  AFFECTED  BY  M0BEEN 
KNOWLEDGE.  16mo,  $1.00. 

This  essay  is  a  sequel  to  “  The  Destiny  of  Man.”  Its  object  is  to 
show  that  the  indications  of  Science  and  Philosophy  are  theistic, 
not  atheistic ;  that  while  the  idea  of  God  has  been  gi’eatly  modified 
by  modern  knowledge,  it  has  not  been  lost  or  belittled,  but  magni¬ 
fied  and  illuminated.  The  essay  is  prefaced  by  a  long  Introduction 
of  remarkable  interest,  and  the  wrhole  book  is  full  of  significance 
and  charm  for  all  thoughtful  minds. 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO.,  Publishers,  Boston. 


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